Marina Wheeler QC

Marina Wheeler QC has recently returned to Chambers following the publication of her family memoir, The Lost Homestead. She resumes practice in public and administrative law and family cases with a cross-border or national security angle. She will also prioritise mediation and investigations, especially in the workplace, building on years she spent litigating employment disputes.

Before starting work at the Bar, Marina obtained a Master’s Degree in EC law from Brussels University and practised there, specialising in competition, trade and environment law. As a junior appointed to the Attorney General’s ‘B’, then ‘A’ Panel, she undertook large volumes of work for Central Government Departments and Agencies, including the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice and Home Office, predominantly involving prisons, mental health, armed conflict, and radicalisation, as well as employment work. Her local government work has involved child protection and adult social care, usually with a privacy or human rights element. She has also frequently worked for the NHS in employment disputes and the reconfiguration of hospital services, involving the adequacy of consultation, alleged breaches of legitimate expectation and the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Marina is an accredited mediator and previously taught mediation and alternative dispute resolution at Regents University, London, on a part-time basis.

Selected Cases:

• Re C (A Child) (no 2) (Application for Public Interest Immunity) [2017] EWHC 692 (Fam): Disclosure in care proceedings where the child’s father had been denied passport on national security grounds; alternative means to protect child.
• Brighton & Hove City Council v VM & Others [2016] (unreported): Determination of the habitual residence of a Russian child and appropriate jurisdiction to consider long-term care, applying Brussels II and Hague Convention.
• Serdar Mohammed and Ors v Secretary of State for Defence [2015] EWCA Civ 843: challenge to UK Armed Forces’ right to detain Afghan nationals suspected of participation in armed conflict.
• Belhadj and Ors v Security Services and Ors [2015] UK IPTrib 13 132-H, [2014] UKIPTrib 13 132-9H: challenge to the legality of the regime for the interception, use, retention etc of legally privileged communications.
• NXB v Crown Prosecution Service [2015] EWHC 631 (QB) claim under the Human Rights Act by victim of sexual abuse following withdrawal of the alleged abuser’s prosecution.
• R (Enfield London Borough Council) v Barnet Clinical Commissioning Group and Ors [2013] EWHC 3496 (Admin) allegations of inadequate consultation, procedural unfairness and breach of Public Sector Equality duty in context of closure of Chase Farm Hospital Accident & Emergency Department.
• R (Ealing London Borough of Ealing) v NHS England [2013] EWHC 3255 challenge on multiple public law grounds to the reconfiguration of hospital services in 8 London boroughs.