Jovanka specialises in public, human rights and asylum law. She has been in practise since 1996 as a caseworker and qualified as a solicitor in March 2000. She is accredited to senior caseworker and supervisor levels in immigration and asylum law.

Prior to joining the legal profession, she was Oxfam’s representative to the States of Former Yugoslavia and was responsible, in partnership with local non-governmental and international governmental organisations for relief, rehabilitation and development programmes on all sides of the warring divide.

Jovanka has conducted a wide range of complex cases and multi party actions before the First and Upper Tier Tribunals, High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, the European Court and the European Commission, including many cases requiring emergency interventions both before the High Court (interim injunctions) and the European Court (Rule 39 indications). In 2010 she was given a 5* rating in the Good lawyer Guide for outstanding legal practice. For details on a number of important and successful cases visit section: Notable Cases.

Jovanka also successfully represented the Zimbabwe hunger strikers, both in their release from immigration detention to hospital and their asylum cases. She also represented ‘Tanya’, a Zimbabwean asylum seeker who was solicited by a Chief Immigration Officer. She has a long history in cases from the Balkans and Sudan; she acted for four of the appellants in the Sudan country guidance cases, all of which were conceded at the door of the Tribunal. In July 2012 she was selected by UNHCR to be the United Kingdom’s representative at an invitation-only conference on ‘protection from refoulement and the right to an effective remedy’ at the European Court of Human Rights.