About Hamna Anwar

Experience at the highest level.

Hamna’s appellate work includes appeals involving complex issues of criminal law, Charter rights, evidentiary rulings, jury instructions, sentencing, as well as bail pending appeal.

Hamna recently appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada with Women in Canadian Criminal Defence (WiCCD)’s intervener team in R. v. Burke-Whittaker, contributing to written submissions advocating for the preservation of judicial discretion and access to alternatives to incarceration for women convicted of firearm offences.

Leadership, advocacy and service.

Hamna serves as an executive with the national advocacy group Women in Canadian Criminal Defence (WiCCD), where she is Co-Director of Membership and Diversity and Co-Editor of The Brew. She previously served as an executive with the Criminal Justice Section and the Women Lawyers Forum of the Ontario Bar Association. She also provides pro bono legal services through the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic's Criminalization of Women Program.

Legal training shaped by a broader academic lens.

Hamna earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Ottawa in 2017 and was a recipient of the Amatul Rahman Malik Social Justice Fellowship. She earned her Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto in 2012 and subsequently obtained a Master of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Toronto in 2013, where her thesis examined the intersectionality of race, masculinity, Islamophobia, national security, and the law.