16 Facts About Nicolas Bratza

Sir Nicolas Dusan Bratza was born on 3 March 1945 and is a British lawyer and a former President of the European Court of Human Rights.

Nicolas Bratza was appointed as a board member of the International Service for Human Rights in May 2013.

Nicolas Bratza was born on 3 March 1945 and educated at Wimbledon College, a state-maintained Jesuit school for boys.

Nicolas Bratza's father was Milan Bratza, a Serbian concert violinist who settled in London after the First World War, and his mother, an operatic singer, came from the Russell family, which has produced three generations of Law Lords.

Nicolas Bratza studied law at Brasenose College, Oxford, and was awarded a first class degree.

Nicolas Bratza then spent two years teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School before being called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1969, where he was a Hardwicke and Droop Scholar.

Nicolas Bratza was appointed a Bencher of the Inn in 1993.

Nicolas Bratza was appointed Junior Counsel to the Crown at Common Law in 1979 and took silk as Queen's Counsel in 1988.

Nicolas Bratza acted in 1981 for the UK Government at the European Court of Human Rights against Jeffrey Dudgeon who complained successfully that the law in Northern Ireland, which made homosexual acts between consenting adult males a criminal offence, was a breach of the convention.

In 1993, Nicolas Bratza was appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court and elected a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn.

In 1998, the commission was abolished and replaced by a permanent European Court of Human Rights, and Nicolas Bratza was elected as the Judge of this Court representing the United Kingdom.

The eligibility criteria for appointment required that Nicolas Bratza hold judicial office in his home territory, and for this reason he was appointed a High Court judge.

Nicolas Bratza was elected to a second and final term as a judge of the court and re-elected as a section president in 2004.

Nicolas Bratza was a vice-president of the court from 19 January 2007 to 3 November 2011.

Nicolas Bratza was appointed as President of the British Institute of Human Rights Advisory Board in February 2013, a member of the advisory board of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, a member of the editorial board of the European Human Rights Law Review and a member of the advisory board of the European Human Rights Association.

In 2018, Nicolas Bratza became a member of the executive committee of the International Commission of Jurists, having served as a Commissioner since 2013.