Stephanie Reynolds

Lecturer in Law and Co-director Liverpool European Law Unit, University of Liverpool

Stephanie was appointed Lecturer in Law at the School of Law and Social Justice in September 2013. She is a graduate of L'Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the University of Liverpool and completed her PhD studies at the latter institution in March 2015.

Stephanie's area of expertise falls primarily within EU law, specifically EU constitutional law, the law of the single market, Union citizenship and the EU legal framework relating to the protection of fundamental rights. Her doctoral thesis analyses the Court of Justice's approach to adjudicating tensions between the Treaty free movement provisions and fundamental rights. It argues that the Court's adjudicative methodology offers procedural prioritisation to free movement over fundamental rights and that this has concrete consequences for fundamental rights protection. The thesis runs a diagnostic analysis of the causes of this adjudicative imbalance concluding that it is the result of historical factors and significant constitutional evolutions. This uneven adjudicative architecture is then critiqued against fundamental rights theory and the Union's contemporary constitutional framework. Ultimately an alternative model of adjudication is proposed rooted in the concept of balancing.

Stephanie has also published in leading journals on the introduction of the 'genuine enjoyment test' to the EU citizenship legal landscape, and on the relationship between free movement and fundamental rights in the area of housing policy. In 2014, she was also appointed UK co-rapporteur at the XXVI FIDE Congress, hosted by the University of Copenhagen, on the topic of "Union Citizenship: Development, Impact and Challenges". As an active member of the Liverpool European Union Law Unit, Stephanie contributed extensively to the UK Government's UK/EU Balance of Competences Review. Developing this work, she is currently working with other members of LELU on a series of UK ESRC-funded events around the UK's renegotiation of its relationship with the European Union and the forthcoming referendum on UK membership of the EU. From September 2015, Stephanie became Director of the Liverpool European Law Unit.

Stephanie enjoys teaching on a wide range of engaging subjects including criminal law, EU law, and the School's innovative Law and Social Justice module.

Prior to joining the School, Stephanie worked in policy and communications at the Merseyside Brussels Office.