Ariagni is a human rights and equality law expert, specialising in housing law, employment and discrimination law, administrative and public law, and international human rights.
She has extensive experience representing individuals and organisations in cases involving discrimination, socio-economic disadvantage and the exercise of public functions. Her practice includes issues concerning transparency, accountability and good decision-making, including the use of artificial intelligence by public bodies.
Alongside her practice, Ariagni has held senior in-house legal roles at the Equal Rights Trust, Public Law Project and Human Dignity Trust. She combines her experience of strategic litigation with a strong background in individual representation, with particular expertise in identifying and developing cases capable of advancing wider principles of equality, human rights and access to justice. She has experience developing cases from an early stage, identifying broader legal issues and using litigation to address systemic barriers.
Housing Law
Overview
Ariagni has a longstanding practice in housing and homelessness law. She has frequently appeared in homelessness appeals and in defending possession proceedings, including disrepair counterclaims. Ariagni regularly successfully advances Equality Act 2010 arguments in housing and homelessness cases, ensuring that the court undertakes a full review of whether local authorities have properly discharged their non-discrimination duties.
Ariagni has also worked extensively with housing organisations. She has volunteered as a duty advocate with Greenwich Housing Rights and is a trainer for Shelter, delivering housing and homelessness law training.
Notable Cases
In recent years, Ariagni has worked in-house directing strategic litigation for public and human rights legal charities.
Ariagni’s past cases have included:
SG v LB Merton (2016): A successful homelessness appeal in which the local authority’s decision that the applicant was intentionally homeless was quashed on the basis that it had failed properly to consider the medical evidence concerning her mental health and its relevance to intentionality.
MH v LB Southwark (2015): A successful ‘priority need’ homelessness appeal in which Ariagni successfully argued that the local authority had failed to obtain an updated medical opinion and had not properly addressed its obligations under the Equality Act 2010.
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Employment and Discrimination Law
Overview
Ariagni has substantial experience in employment and discrimination law, advising and representing claimants in relation to workplace disputes.
In 2019, Ariagni worked in the Law and Policy Programme at Amnesty International, where she developed the organisation’s policy on when an individual should be considered a whistleblower. Through her work with the Equal Rights Trust, she gained extensive experience in the analysis and implementation of employment and non-discrimination laws across different jurisdictions, working with equality groups from Central Asia and Europe to South America. She has a specialist understanding of how equality and employment protections operate in practice across different legal systems.
Ariagni’s wider equality practice has included strategic litigation concerning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, gender-based violence and the human rights implications of artificial intelligence.
Notable Cases
In recent years, Ariagni has worked in-house directing strategic litigation for public and human rights legal charities.
Ariagni’s past cases have included:
KY v P&Co Ltd (2016): Ariagni represented an individual in a six-day trial involving multiple disability discrimination allegations, securing a compensation award of over £50,000, including substantial injury to feelings award, aggravated damages and compensation for injury to health, together with a costs order in favour of the law centre that had assisted the claimant pro bono.
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Administrative and Public Law
Overview
Ariagni’s work has included judicial review and statutory appeals concerning homelessness, immigration, welfare, legal aid, equality and automated decision-making.
Between 2022-2023, Ariagni was Legal Director at the Public Law Project, leading the organisation’s legal research and litigation strategy. She spearheaded work examining the lack of transparency surrounding public bodies’ use of automated decision-making, including the launch in February 2023 of the ‘Tracking Automated Government’ register. This tool was designed to help individuals and those representing them, identify when they have been affected by automated decision-making and access appropriate remedies in cases where this has led to discriminatory or otherwise unfair outcomes.
Notable Cases
Public Law Project v Information Commissioner, 2023: In her role as Legal Director, Ariagni developed the evidence based and legal arguments for the Public Law Project’s appeal against the refusal to disclose information about a Home Office automated ‘triage’ tool used to determine whether couples planning to marry should be subjected to a ‘sham marriage’ investigation. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the case was one of the first in England to invite judicial scrutiny of the high degree of opacity surrounding the use of automated decision-making by public bodies.
MP v First-tier Tribunal and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, 2022: Ariagni acted as lead counsel in a judicial review claim before the Upper Tribunal challenging the lawfulness of the residence eligibility criteria of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. The case raised complex issues around “status” and “justification” in article 14 (non-discrimination) human rights claims.
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International Human Rights
Overview
Ariagni has extensive international human rights experience, developed through senior legal roles with leading human rights organisations. Her work has involved developing litigation strategies, identifying opportunities for legal and systemic change, and working with partners and organisations to bring cases raising issues of wider public importance.
As Head of Legal at the Human Dignity Trust (2023-2026), she directed strategic constitutional challenges to the criminalisation of consensual same-sex intimacy across multiple jurisdictions in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as work before UN human rights treaty bodies. She also led technical legal assistance to government and civil society partners on legislative reform to ensure sexual offences laws comply with international human rights standards.
At the Equal Rights Trust (2019-2021), Ariagni led the organisation’s strategic litigation programme, including litigation before the European Court of Human Rights. Her work addressed discriminatory torture, gender-based violence, racial discrimination and disability discrimination.
Between 2016 and 2017, Ariagni worked with Reprieve, supporting the legal representation of 51 prisoners in sentencing rehearings in Malawi following the Constitutional Court’s abolition of the mandatory death penalty. None of the prisoners was resentenced to death, and 24 received revised sentences resulting in their immediate release.
Notable Cases
Much of Ariagni’s work in international human rights has necessarily been conducted confidentially, given the risks faced by human rights defenders in many of the countries in which she has worked.
Cases in the public domain are listed below:
Lapunov v Russia, Application no. 28834/19, 2023: Ariagni developed and led the drafting of the Equal Rights Trust’s intervention in this case, where the European Court of Human Rights found that the applicant was a victim of discriminatory torture based on his sexual orientation. The intervention drew on the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee Against Torture to stress that the State’s obligation to conduct a meaningful investigation into a possibly discriminatory motive behind ill-treatment was indispensable.
L.A. and Others v Russia, Application nos. 27368/19 and 14 others, 2022: Ariagni drafted submissions for the Equal Rights Trust’s intervention in support of one of the applicants. The case concerned the authorities’ failure to protect the applicants from acts of domestic violence and to carry out an effective investigation into these acts.
