Eleanor Mitchell

Eleanor’s practice covers a wide spectrum of public law matters. In addition to the specialist fields below, she has particular experience with claims raising issues of access to justice. Her recent cases include:

• R (CRA & ors) v Lord Chancellor (led by Chris Buttler) – a challenge to hasty changes to the Legal Aid scheme governing statutory immigration appeals to the First-tier Tribunal, resulting in an acknowledgement that the changes had been unlawfully made and the introduction of hourly rates pending further consultation.
• R (Duncan Lewis (Solicitors) Ltd) v Director of Legal Aid Casework (led by Chris Buttler) – a challenge to the lawfulness of the LAA’s refusal to backdate grants of funding, which prompted the introduction of new backdating powers from February 2019.
• R (Good Law Project) v Electoral Commission [2019] 1 All ER 365 (led by Jessica Simor QC) – a successful challenge to the Electoral Commission’s interpretation of the expenses and donations framework governing the EU Referendum.

Eleanor appears regularly in the Court of Appeal, the High Court, the Upper Tribunal and the First-tier Tribunal in relation to:

• asylum and protection claims;
• unlawful detention;
• removal challenges;
• immigration bail;
• segregation in immigration detention;
• human trafficking;
• family reunification;
• age assessment; and
• fresh claim decisions.

Eleanor has experience managing urgent and out-of-hours applications and pursuing civil claims for false imprisonment. She also acts for organisations intervening in significant cases, including the recent Supreme Court proceedings in DN (Rwanda) v SSHD [2020] AC 698 (for Bail for Immigration Detainees, on the application of the Lumba test for unlawful detention to cases involving sequential decision-making) and MS (Pakistan) v SSHD [2020] 1 WLR 1373  (for ECPAT UK, on the significance of Article 4 ECHR to appeals in the Immigration Tribunals) (led by Raza Husain QC).

Eleanor’s other recent cases include:

• R (FR) v SSHD (led by Phillippa Kaufmann QC) – a challenge to a Reasonable Grounds decision, resulting in the Secretary of State accepting that forced labour for the purposes of terrorism is not excluded from the scope of modern slavery.
• R (Humnynstkyi) v SSHD [2020] EWHC 1912 (Admin) (led by Laura Dubinsky) – a successful challenge to the Secretary of State’s policy framework for allocating Schedule 10 bail accommodation to Foreign National Offenders.
• R (YD (Algeria)) v SSHD [2020] EWCA Civ 1683 (led by Raza Husain QC) – an appeal against the Country Guidance case concerning the risks faced by gay men in Algeria.
• SSHD v JS (Uganda) [2020] 1 WLR 43  (led by Raza Husain QC) – an important appeal concerning the UK’s international legal obligations to “family reunion” refugees.
• R (TM (Kenya)) v SSHD [2019] 4 WLR 109 (led by Stephen Knafler QC) – a challenge to the legal and policy framework governing segregation in immigration detention.

Eleanor advises and represents clients in matters concerning educational provision, school exclusions, discrimination, admissions, and special educational needs. Her work includes applications for judicial review, civil claims, and hearings before Governing Bodies and Independent Review Panels. Recent cases have involved issues such as breach of the right to education, the relationship between fixed-term and permanent exclusion, and unlawful progression policies.

Eleanor regularly represents clients in appeals concerning all aspects of Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), and has particular experience working with parents and families to challenge decisions concerning provision and placement. She also has experience of judicial reviews arising from EHCPs, such as R (S) v London Borough of Camden [2018] EWHC 2954 (a successful challenge to a local authority’s decision to unilaterally amend the Claimant’s ECHP).

In the higher and further education sectors, Eleanor has acted for Higher Education Institutions in relation to discrimination claims and judicial review proceedings, and conducted internal investigations in response to student complaints. She has also been instructed by both Ofsted and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

Recent cases include:

• R (Bloomsbury Institute Ltd) v Office for Students [2020] EWCA Civ 1074 (led by Jessica Simor QC and Chris Buttler) –  successful challenge to the Office for Students’ approach to the regulation of higher education institutions.
• R (Learn Direct Ltd) v Ofsted [2017] EWHC 3730 (Admin) (led by Sarah Hannett) – successfully resisted a challenge to Ofsted’s inspection report on the UK’s largest provider of further education.

Eleanor provides advice and representation in relation to discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and Article 14 ECHR, and compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty, across a range of contexts including primary and higher education, immigration and education policy, transportation, and service provision. Eleanor has been instructed, on both a led and an unled basis, by individuals and families, Higher Education Institutions, statutory bodies, and government departments. She is a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s panel of counsel. She also represents clients in the Employment Tribunals in claims under the Equality Act 2010.

Eleanor has been instructed in a range of matters concerning:

• support under s 17 of the Children Act 1989;
• placement decisions under Part III of the Children Act;
• transfer of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under the Interim National Protocol;
• support under the Care Act; and
• after-care services under s 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983.

Eleanor recently acted for the claimants in several Upper Tribunal appeals selected as lead cases for the determination of issues concerning the exportability of benefits arising from the judgment of the CJEU in Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v Tolley (C-430/15), and in the subsequent appeal to the Court of Appeal (led by Tim Buley QC): Konevod v SSWP [2020] EWCA Civ 809.

Eleanor acts in and advises on challenges to Parole Board decisions; challenges to classification/categorisation decisions; and civil claims on behalf of prisoners under the Human Rights Act 1998.

Eleanor has a strong background in PIL and human rights, having completed her MPhil thesis at Oxford in refugee and human rights law and worked for a year with the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Eleanor’s practice in these areas has included:

• advising on legal concerns arising from the Ministry of Defence’s consultation on immunity for armed services personnel (led by Richard Hermer QC);
• acting for the former Speaker of the Catalan Parliament in an application to the European Court of Human Rights challenging the lawfulness of her pre-trial detention (led by Jessica Simor QC);
• written interventions in ECtHR proceedings on issues including discriminatory ill-treatment on the basis of sex/sexual orientation (assisting the Equal Rights Trust and ILGA- Europe) and the application of Article 5(4) in the context of the preventive detention of those with a mental illness (on behalf of Liberty, led by Chris Buttler);
• a complaint to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in relation to State responses to domestic violence (led by Helen Mountfield QC);
• advising on issues relating to compliance with international humanitarian law in the conduct of military operations abroad;
• advising on the human rights implications of extending the definition of combat immunity;
• advising on the relationship between international humanitarian law and law of the sea (led by Zachary Douglas QC); and
• providing advice and drafting support for appeals against the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia.

Eleanor was also instructed (led by Richard Hermer QC) in the lengthy and complex proceedings in Kalma v African Minerals Ltd ([2018] EWHC 3506 (QB); [2020] EWCA Civ 144), which involved claims by a large group of Sierra Leonean villagers who suffered serious violence at the hands of local police. The first-instance proceedings involved the appointment of a High Court judge as a Special Examiner to take evidence in Sierra Leone.

Eleanor has experience in the areas of media and information law relating to human rights and open justice. She regularly assists in the preparation of anonymity applications across a range of public law claims.

Her other work has included:

• Interventions in the European Court of Human Rights in relation to online defamation (Tamiz v United Kingdom, led by Guy Vassall-Adams QC) and liability for the contents of hyperlinks (Magyar Jeti Zert v Hungary, led by Jessica Simor QC).
• A novel and successful anonymity application on behalf of witnesses from Sierra Leone who feared reprisals for giving evidence in English proceedings: Kalma v African Minerals Ltd [2018] EWHC 120 (QB).

Before joining Matrix Eleanor spent a year with the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, where she worked on cutting-edge issues in the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law. She was admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor in Australia in 2011, and developed her litigation experience as a solicitor at Ashurst Australia and as a judicial assistant at the Federal Court of Australia. She has also interned with the Legal Division of the World Food Programme in Rome, where she provided advice on discrimination and employment issues, and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Eleanor holds a BCL and an MPhil in Law from the University of Oxford, where her thesis focused on the relationship between human rights and refugee law in the protection of people fleeing armed conflict. Alongside her studies Eleanor served on the Executive Committee of Oxford Pro Bono Publico, coordinating an extensive comparative law project which was later drawn on by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. She speaks fluent French.

MPhil in Law, Magdalen College, Oxford (Dist.)

Bachelor of Civil Law, Magdalen College, Oxford (Dist.)

Bachelor of Laws (Hons.), Bachelor of Arts (Politics) and Diploma in Languages (French), University of Adelaide

Selected prizes

University of Oxford Law Faculty Prize for International Law and Armed Conflict (2013)

Law Foundation of South Australia Fellowship (2013)

Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Scholarship in Law (2012)

University of Adelaide Medal for outstanding academic achievement (2010)

Angus Parsons Prize for the most meritorious student qualifying for the LLB (Hons.) (2010)

University of Adelaide subject prizes including: Public International Law, Labour Law, Comparative Law, Corporate Law, Constitutional Law, Intellectual Property Law, Law of Crime, Law of Tort (2006-2009)

“The 2016-2017 Legal Year in Overview: Equality Law” (2017) 8 UK Supreme Court Yearbook (with Helen Mountfield QC)

“Law and War in the UK Supreme Court” (2016) 7 UK Supreme Court Yearbook (with Richard Hermer QC)

“The human costs and legal consequences of nuclear weapons under international law” (2016) 899 International Review of the Red Cross (with Louis Maresca)

“Nuclear weapons under international law” (Book Review) (2016) 899 International Review of the Red Cross