Gabrielle Bashir SC

Gaby Bashir SC is the immediate past president of the Bar Association of NSW, a former Director of the Law Council of Australia and the Australian Bar Association and a member of Forbes Chambers. She previously co-chaired both the National Criminal Law Committee of the Law Council and the Criminal Law Committee of the NSW Bar Association. After practicing as a solicitor from 1996 to 2000, Gaby was called to the Bar in 2000 and appointed Senior Counsel in 2014. She appears regularly in courts at all levels of the justice system, practising mainly in criminal law, but also administrative and public law, proceeds of crime litigation, inquests, commissions of inquiry and disciplinary matters. She has been responsible for the overturning of many convictions as miscarriages of justice on appeal, represented the family of Tori Johnson who was tragically killed in the Lindt Café Siege, and acted in the seminal case on disadvantage for First Nations persons in sentencing, Bugmy v The Queen. Her policy work at Law Council and with the NSW Bar Association looked closely at national consent laws. Her practice includes sexual assault trials and appeals, and acting for complainants in sexual assault communications privilege arguments. Gaby has also acted as a support person for victims of sexual assault and advised both accused persons and complainants in sexual and domestic violence matters since 1996. Under her stewardship positive duties and the updated best practice guidelines underpinning cultural change at the bar were introduced, as were guidelines for the bar on the use of AI language models, and models for drug law reform and laws on coercive control.