Our Team
Emma Hutton Chief Executive Officer
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/emmaleehutton/
Emma is Chief Executive Officer, responsible for leading our executive, staff team and operations to deliver strategy, develop and drive forward our vision, and bring our values to life. She leads our financial management and fundraising and represents JustRight Scotland to the wider world. Emma works closely with and is accountable to our Board of Trustees.
Emma is an experienced senior manager and leader with over 20 years’ experience of working for social change in Scotland and further afield. Her background spans social enterprise development, campaigning and communications, and human rights advocacy and promotion.
In her early career, Emma led the start-up of Social Enterprise Scotland before leading business development for Cyrenians. She then spent time working in social enterprise business development in Sri Lanka and Australia, before returning to the UK to study law. In 2012 she led the development of Equally Ours, a strategic human rights communications campaign. Returning to Scotland in 2014, she spent 8 years as part of the leadership team at the Scottish Human Right Commission before joining JustRight Scotland in June 2022. Emma has also held non-executive positions with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and Engender.
Jen Ang Director of Development & Policy
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jenniferang/
Jen is a co-founder and our Director of Development & Policy, responsible for strategy and development as well as oversight of our policy, communications and training. She also leads our social enterprise, JRS Knowhow.
Jen is an experienced human rights lawyer qualified to practice in Scotland, England and Wales, and New York State. She is a legal expert on asylum, human rights and children’s rights, and on the rights of survivors of torture, and is regularly asked to speak, and contribute to research, policy and publications in these areas.
Jen is also an experienced lecturer in law with the Open University, lecturing on Scots law and the law of England and Wales. She is an enthusiastic advocate of open education and widening access to education for all.
Andy Sirel Legal Director & Partner
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/andy-sirel-968a1b57/
Andy is a co-founding Partner and Legal Director, responsible for supervision of legal casework. Andy also heads our Scottish Refugee & Migrant Centre. He has an LLM in International Human Rights Law and has been working in human rights law since 2010. He currently sits on the Law Society of Scotland’s Immigration & Asylum Sub-Committee as well as the Scottish Government’s Child Trafficking Strategy Group.
Andy is experienced in working directly with migrant children and young people, with a particular specialism in working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children and child victims of trafficking. He has represented migrant children in the national asylum and trafficking identification procedures, the immigration and asylum tribunals, and in Judicial Reviews in the Court of Session. He is an expert in age assessment, having successfully taken strategic litigation in this area as well as contributing to the drafting of the 2018 Scottish Government Practice Guidance on Age Assessment. He delivers training across the UK on age assessment best practice.
Prior to this, Andy worked as a Legal Officer at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, supervising the implementation of British, Irish and Cypriot judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. He also enjoys lecturing at the University of Glasgow, where he has taught European Human Rights Law for over 7 years.
Jenny Cook Head of Operations
With over 10 years’ experience in HR and Operations, Jenny is responsible for human resource management and the daily operations of our charity. Jenny is the Data Protection Officer at JustRight Scotland and the first point of contact for enquiries about our organisation.
Jenny is currently studying Human Resource Management, CIPD level 7 accreditation, at the University of Strathclyde and will graduate in 2024.
Jenny is passionate about human rights with focus on discrimination and equity.
Barbara Bolton Legal Director & Partner
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/barbarabolton/
Barbara is a Legal Director and Partner, and leads our Scottish Just Law Centre. Having graduated from Glasgow University with First Class Honours in Public International Law, she obtained an LLM from New York University, covering international human rights law, made possible through a fully funded scholarship awarded based on academic merit.
Barbara spent over 14 years in private practice specialising in civil litigation, and is qualified to practice in Scotland, England & Wales and New York State. Alongside her client work, she has worked on diverse pro bono projects including successful asylum appeals in New York City, providing research and support to the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda, and providing advice through the Citizens Advice Bureau in Scotland.
Prior to joining JRS, Barbara spent two years as Head of Legal and Policy at the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and was a Partner in a major law firm in Edinburgh for six years. She now combines policy work with legal case work, using human rights and equality law to secure remedies for rights breaches, including through strategic public interest litigation.
