Sam Makkan, Senior Consultant

Sam Makkan is a barrister with over 22 years of criminal law practical experience, predominantly in prosecution work.

Sam was born in Africa – on the border of Zambia and Malawi. He knows the geography of Malawi, its political landscape, development issues, its people, its culture and traditions. He speaks Chichewa.

He combines his legal experience with experience and expertise gained in international development work on programmes and projects in the justice sector – donors being agencies such as European Union, Council of Europe, UNDP and USAID.   As part of this, he has gained extensive experience of engaging with partners, stakeholders, government officials, NGO’s and CBO’s and others in consultations, focus groups, discussions, and conferences to chart progress through consensus and ownership.

Sam has experience of engaging at Ministerial level in Georgia and the UK, high level officials and civil servants in Indonesia and in most of his international work, highest legal officials in Maldives – Attorney General and Director of Public.

His international work has included evaluation, capacity assessment, building and strengthening institutions, judicial, court staff and justice sector reform, governance and rule of law, access to justice, anti-corruption, curriculum development and training, human rights and policy and strategic formulations and making recommendations for further donor intervention. He is currently engaged in a USAID funded rule of law assessment in the general context of democracy, governance and human rights issues. 

Sam also has research and analytical skills in the areas of human rights and equality. He is author of a book “The Human Rights Act 1998…” written when the UK formally made the European Convention part of UK domestic law. He is also author of a book “The Equality Act 2006,” a book about the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, its constitution, powers, duties, responsibilities and its enforcement jurisdiction.

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