Phil Shiner

Phil Shiner (lawyer, academic)
Founder of	Public Interest Lawyers
Interests	human rights

Phil Shiner leads the team at Public Interest Lawyers. He was a reputed lawyer who worked on issues concerning international, environmental and human rights law. He was later struck off for "dishonesty".

Career

Phil has practised as a solicitor in the UK since 1981. He has written extensively on international and human rights law, and has spoken at many conferences around the world on issues arising through PIL's work.

Phil is a committed socialist and the roots of his career as a lawyer are firmly planted in the law centre movement of the eighties. Phil has had a diverse and high profile legal career where he has always acted for the victims of injustices borne of many different circumstances.

Phil is the lawyer that succeeded in establishing two separate judicial Public Inquiries arising out of alleged unlawful behaviour of UK forces in Iraq. Firstly the Baha Mousa Inquiry and most recently the Al-Sweady Inquiry.

In recent years Phil has acted in many important Judicial Review cases.Three of these cases were later heard in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights - those of namely Al-Skeini, Al-Jedda and Hasan.

Phil Shiner has worked as a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University and a visiting fellow at London School of Economics. He was made "Human Rights Lawyer of the Year" in 2004 by Liberty and Justice. He was recognised by the Law Society as an outstanding achiever at the Law Society Awards in 2011.

Honours

Phil is the Honorary Vice President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers and in 2012 Phil was presented with an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Kent in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Public Interest Law throughout his career.

Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal

Shiner was subject to a secret tribunal by the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority. John Hyde, writing for the Law Society Gazette, criticised the process, opining that "the Mail and Sun are desperate to nail Shiner" in an article headlined "Shiner’s secret prosecution is a farce". A 2017 Evening Times articles published while the tribunal was ongoing contains a lot of details.

In February 2017, the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority struck off Shiner after determining that he had been “dishonest”. An anonymously authored report in "The Telegraph" was headlined "Phil Shiner should face a criminal investigation over his dishonesty in smearing British troops".

 

A Document by Phil Shiner

Title	Document type	Publication date	Subject(s)	Description
Document:Second Baha Mousa Memorial Lecture	speech	September 2010	Baha Mousa UK/Torture Iraq Historic Allegations Team	A shocking introduction to the systematic abuse of prisoners by the British military in Iraq and focusing on the case of Baha Mousa

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