At the very beginning of 1990 after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Kateřina Šimáčková quit her job and decided to explore the world.
She first saw her current workplace, the European Court of Human Rights, in 1990 - at that time she was working as an au pair in Hanau while attending Jurgen Habermas' lectures at the University of Frankfurt. And because she was a big fan of the European Convention on Human Rights, she decided to hitchhike to Strasbourg to see the place where the Convention comes to life. She would never have believed that one day she would be one of the judges of the European Court of Human Rights. However, on her journey to becoming one, she had to step outside of her comfort zone multiple times.
She was one of only two women on the 15-member Czech Constitutional Court, advocated for greater participation of women at the highest levels of the judiciary, mentored and inspired several young women. She has formed a group of Czech lawyers who have published together on gender inequalities and is preparing a second volume of Men's Law. Are legal rules neutral?
The project “75 women in 75 years of Council of Europe history” is organised by the Delegation of the European Union to the Council of Europe with the Council of Europe and the Permanent Representations of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
