Shami Chakrabarti
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The Right Honourable The Baroness Chakrabarti CBE |
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| Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales | |||
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Assumed office 6 October 2016 |
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| Leader | Jeremy Corbyn | ||
| Preceded by | Karl Turner | ||
| Chancellor of the University of Essex | |||
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Assumed office 2 September 2014 |
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| Preceded by | The Lord Phillips of Sudbury | ||
| Personal details | |||
| Born |
Sharmishta Chakrabarti 16 June 1969 London, England, UK |
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| Political party |
Independent (Before 2016) Labour (2016–present) |
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| Alma mater | London School of Economics | ||
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Sharmishta Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti, CBE (born 16 June 1969), commonly known as Shami Chakrabarti, is a British Labour Party politician and member of the House of Lords. She is also a barrister, and was the director of Liberty, an advocacy group which promotes civil liberties and human rights, from 2003 to 2016.
Chakrabarti was born in Harrow, London, and studied Law at the London School of Economics. After graduating, she was called to the Bar and then worked as an in-house legal counsel for the Home Office.
When she was the director of Liberty, she campaigned against "excessive" anti-terror legislation. In this role she frequently contributed to BBC Radio 4 and various newspapers, and was described in The Times as "probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years". In September 2014, she was appointed as Chancellor of the University of Essex, a politically neutral role from which she will step down in July 2017.
Chakrabarti was one of the panel members of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards throughout 2011 and 2012. In April 2016 she was invited by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to chair an inquiry into alleged anti-semitism in the Labour Party, and she presented its findings in June. In August 2016 she was nominated by Corbyn to receive a life peerage in the Prime Minister's Resignation Honours.
Chakrabarti was born to Bengali parents in the suburb of Kenton in the London Borough of Harrow. Her father, a bookkeeper, has been cited by Chakrabarti as an influence on her gaining an interest in civil liberties. She attended Bentley Wood High School, a girls' comprehensive school, then Harrow Weald Sixth Form College. She was a member of the SDP.
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