Georgia Speechly

Georgia is a DPhil in Law candidate under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Herring.  Her research focuses on the capacity of South African law to address obstetric violence in public maternity wards, with reference to feminist and relational notions of harm.  Her doctoral studies are supported by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.  She is also a Research Assistant at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights.

Georgia holds an LLM (First Class Honours) from Darwin College, University of Cambridge.  Her LLM dissertation considered how constitutional damages are employed as a remedy for human rights violations by apex courts in South Africa, India, and Canada.  She also holds BA (Law) and LLB degrees from Stellenbosch University, South Africa and spent a semester as a visiting student at the University of Helsinki, Finland.  She graduated with First Class Honours as the top performing law student at Stellenbosch University, and was featured in Without Prejudice’s article on South Africa’s top final year law students in 2017.

Prior to commencing the DPhil in Law, Georgia served as a judicial law clerk to Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. She has also worked as a researcher in the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, assisting primarily with issues relating to forced marriage.

Georgia completed her traineeship in 2019 and has been admitted as an attorney in the High Court of South Africa.