11 Facts About Nathalie Lieven

Nathalie Lieven is the sister of Elena, Dominic, Anatol, and Michael Lieven.

Nathalie Lieven was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated BA in 1986, then trained as a barrister at Gray's Inn, London.

Nathalie Lieven was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1989.

Nathalie Lieven specialised in planning and administrative law, appointed Queen's Counsel in 2006 and a deputy High Court judge in 2016.

Nathalie Lieven was appointed as a High Court judge on 11 January 2019 and was assigned to the Family Division.

Nathalie Lieven was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in December 2019.

Nathalie Lieven was a Labour Party councillor for the Somers Town ward on the Camden London Borough Council from 1994 to 1998.

In June 2019, on the application of a National Health Service Trust in charge of an ante-natal clinic, Mrs Justice Nathalie Lieven made an order in the Court of Protection for a pregnant Nigerian woman with learning difficulties to have a forced abortion against her wishes, on the grounds that it was in her best interests.

Nathalie Lieven said she was not sure the woman understood what having a baby meant and that "she would like to have a baby in the same way she would like to have a nice doll".

In January 2020, in a legal battle between Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and the parents of a child on a life support system, Mrs Justice Nathalie Lieven gave permission for the life support to be withdrawn, having found that the child was "brainstem dead" and therefore had no best interests to consider.

In March 2021, Mrs Justice Nathalie Lieven had to consider whether a transgender teenager with gender dysphoria who wished to continue with puberty-blocking drugs needed the permission of the court to do so.