Shami Chakrabarti has become one of the best known lawyers in the country since taking over as the director of liberty. But Rachel Rothwell discovers there is more to her than a ‘ranty’ human rights campaigner

Shami Chakrabarti is talking urgently into her mobile telephone as she answers the door of her south London Victorian home. ‘We need to get an amendment in to address the North Korea problem,’ she is saying, gesturing theatrically towards the lounge at the same time. ‘Because what is in the Bill at the moment is completely unacceptable.’


Her living room speaks of a hectic, double life. One end of the long lounge is entirely free of clutter – and contains the sofa on whose edge Ms Chakrabarti will perch as she talks animatedly about the issues that get her so fired up. At the other, a collection of children’s things, including a knee-level musical keyboard with fluffy microphone attached, and a miniature drum-kit. ‘The grandparents buy that stuff,’ she explains later. ‘Fortunately, my son has already lost one of the drum sticks.’


So what is this North Korea problem that must be sorted out? It stems from the new offence of ‘glorifying terrorism’ contained in the controversial Terrorism Bill, she explains. ‘What is proposed would cover threats to property, anywhere in the world – including in murderous dictatorships. It could be someone talking about taking up arms in North Korea, or in Saddam’s Iraq. If you said, “the only way Zimbabwe will be free from Robert Mugabe is if the people take up arms against him and his soldiers”, you would have committed the offence. That is astonishing.’


As Ms Chakrabarti talks, her eyes lock on to you. Her small frame is almost swamped by a masculine-looking suit and sensible shoes – counterbalanced with generously applied eyeliner and the kind of cropped haircut that makes her look more, not less, feminine. Ms Chakrabarti is all about balance, and thereby gives the civil liberties argument more weight – she is against identity cards, but would like to see the money spent on more intelligence officers. She is vehemently opposed to the ‘incitement to religious hatred’ proposals that she maintains will threaten freedom of speech for people who are simply making ‘ranty speeches’ – but she would like to see it made easier for those who actually intend a murderous outcome to be prosecuted for ‘incitement to commit murder’.


One of the issues that has her most wound up at the time of speaking was the Terrorism Bill proposal to detain suspects for three months without charge. Speaking before the government’s defeat on the issue, she says: ‘If you have a person who is picked up on reasonable suspicion, and then detained for 90 days before the police realise they had got the wrong Mohammed Khan, then what will be going through that person’s mind? What will be going through the minds of their family, their friends, their younger brother? That this is British justice? While they have been away, they will have lost their job, and their family will have been visited by every extremist.’


She also considers the safeguards of judicial supervision to be a red herring. She asserts: ‘By definition, there is not any evidence against them, or they would have been charged. So the police will just be telling the judge that they are waiting for information to come through from Egypt etcetera, or “these are the inquiries we are making”.


‘There are more proportionate ways to deal with the problem of gathering evidence, for example powers to force people to hand over encryption keys to access computer evidence. Suspects can be charged with lesser offences while evidence is being gathered, and then charged with something else when the evidence is there. They can be interviewed after being charged. That would be more in keeping with our traditions of justice.’


Ms Chakrabarti grew up in north London, after her parents moved to the UK from Calcutta. She studied law at the London School of Economics, then did a pupillage at 39 Essex Street. She was called to the bar in 1994.


Why did she go into the law? Unusually, she is stumped for an answer. There is a long pause. ‘Well as a kid, I watched “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Perry Mason and that kind of thing. I was always fairly political, though on civil liberties issues – I never understood economics. I was always interested in justice issues, the individual and the state.’


She smiles. ‘I was never like Tony Blair, wanting to make my mark in history. I never thought that, but I thought I could make a difference to individuals. Not to do a public role, but I was always a political animal. So it’s ironic really that I have ended up in this job.’


She soon became disillusioned with the life as a barrister, she confesses: ‘I was always really interested in public and constitutional law, and I did plenty of administrative law at 39 Essex Street. But after the pupillage – or even before – comes the reality of life as a junior barrister, getting up at 5am to deal with someone’s car collision. If you are lucky, you might get something interesting from time to time – but it won’t come up that often.’


Then, in 1996, she saw an advertisement for a job as a Home Office lawyer. ‘I suppose it was a bit of a funny choice,’ she laughs. ‘At the time, Michael Howard was being really nasty to asylum seekers and bashing the judges – although all that has been exceeded now [by the current government]. But I don’t regret a second of it. I met some of the cleverest policy-makers there. I worry more and more about how they are treated, and how long the independent civil service can remain. I think it is being eroded by stealth.


‘I justified going to the Home Office because I believe that everything is better as a result of good legal advice – it can make a bad law better, or result in some legislation being dropped. You have to respect that the politicians have been elected, and I hadn’t been. But giving good advice, and giving it well, can sometimes make a difference – for example, a bad decision does not get made, or even if a policy decision has been made, you implement it in the best way possible, and that is how you earn the respect of ministers. After six years there, I felt as much a civil servant as a lawyer.’


Ms Chakrabarti left the Home Office in 2001 to join Liberty as an in-house lawyer. There were those in the organisation who wondered why on earth they were hiring a lawyer from the enemy camp: ‘It raised a few eyebrows with my friends and family when I joined the Home Office, and it raised eyebrows at Liberty that I was joining from the Home Office. But then I have always enjoyed putting a square peg in a round hole.’


Two years later, she was made director of Liberty – following in the footsteps of the likes of Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt. She is a familiar face on the television these days, and serves as an inspiration for many young lawyers out there. Has it gone to her head? Not exactly. ‘I know how ordinary I am, and am very aware of the privilege of my position. If I wasn’t in this job, I would be in the pub with other lawyers saying these [anti-terrorism] measures are outrageous. But I have the privilege of saying it to the media, on Liberty’s behalf. I am not feeling drunk on it. I am the grim reaper – people see me when there is bad news, and we are at a time when there is a lot of bad stuff happening at the moment.’


Although she is a passionate believer in the cause – maintaining that human rights should be at the core of society’s value system – she says she has had to learn to be ‘restrained and rational’ in her arguments. ‘Doing this job is not an indulgence, it is a serious responsibility. Liberty has been going for 71 years. We are caretakers, and so we cannot afford to let our emotions run away with us. The legal discipline helps that, because you are trying to be as professional as you would be in court. It is worse for us to get carried away than it is for the other side – there is so much at stake. But I’m sure I slip up sometimes.’


Ms Chakrabarti is married to Martyn Hopper, a partner at City firm Herbert Smith – she smirks at the mention of his corporate occupation – and has a four-year-old son. How does she fit it all in? She leans back and frowns. ‘We manage. My husband always wanted to be a dad who is there, so we share out the evenings to make sure we have it covered.’


Then she rallies: ‘Actually, my job is easier for having a child. Otherwise, it would be too mad. It could consume you. You would live in the office and surround yourself with people who think just like you – I would be even more ranty.


‘But it is no good just being with people who agree with you. If you have a child, you also have to deal with real life, and talk to parents from school etcetera. It would be easy enough to sit round in the kitchen, reading The Guardian and listening to the “Today” programme, talking to people who already agree with you. But that is not campaigning.


‘We need to reach people who have no idea this [Terrorism] Bill is being introduced, people who are worried about whether it is safe to take their kids on the bus. And it is easier to understand that, being a mother. Their fear is not completely irrational, and people on my side of the debate need to understand that.’