Contact
Work group
Human Rights
Barbara Havelková is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford and a Tutorial Fellow in Law at St Hilda’s College. She holds degrees from Charles University in Prague (Mgr; summa cum laude), Europa-Institut of Saarland University (LLM) and the University of Oxford (Mst in Legal Research, DPhil). Barbara’s research and teaching interests include gender legal studies and feminist jurisprudence, equality and anti-discrimination law, constitutional law, EU law and law in post-socialist transitions. Her book, 'Gender Equality in Law: Uncovering the Legacies of Czech State Socialism', was published by Hart/Bloomsbury in 2017, and a volume on ‘Anti-Discrimination Law in Civil Law Jurisdictions’, she co-authored and co-edited, came out in 2019 with Oxford University Press.
Research Project
(Not) raising equality concerns? Lawyers’ constitutional litigation strategies in Czechia
There have been very few cases on sex equality/discrimination before the Czech Constitutional Court. This could have two possible reasons: either the Court is avoiding equality/discrimination questions when they are brought to it, or cases which could be seen as having an equality/discrimination dimension are not plead as such by applicants. This project explores these possibilities. Cases where an equality/discrimination arguments were raised in pleadings but not examined on merit by the Court will be identified as well as those where such arguments might have been expected (given international law - ECHR and CEDAW - obligations) but were not plead. To explore the question why there is a relative lack of engagement with equality/discrimination arguments, me and my co-author (Terezie Bokova) will conduct interview with several (expected 7-10) litigating lawyers, who are repeat players in the human rights cases before the Court.