Judith Vermeulen 

Junior associate in criminal law

Judith aims to combine her interest in criminal law with her passion for societal matters, whilst always putting human rights first. On the basis of this motivation and guided by An-Sofie Raes and Christine Mussche, she wishes to become a solid criminal lawyer.

Judith obtained her Master of Laws at Ghent University in 2017. During that programme, Judith completed an internship at Eurojust in The Hague and represented Belgium in the 'Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court' in Washington D.C together with four fellow students. Thereafter, in 2018, she studied at the College of Europe in Bruges and completed the LLM European Legal Studies. In July 2022, Judith successfully defended her PhD on the use of news algorithms and their human rights impact. 

Motivated to support people in concrete situations, Judith recently decided to step into the legal profession. Early 2023, she joined the firm Van Steenbrugge Advocaten, where she will mainly focus on criminal (procedural) law. 

Degrees and qualifications

Master of Laws, 2017
LLM European Legal Studies, 2018
Doctor of Laws, 2022

Internship

VS Attorneys

Experience

PhD researcher at Ghent University, 2018-2022
Postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, 2022

Legal Contributions

Judith Vermeulen, To Nudge or Not to Nudge: News Recommendation as a Tool to Achieve Online Media Pluralism, Digital Journalism, pp. 1-20 (2022)

Judith Vermeulen, 'Access Diversity through Online News Media and Public Service Algorithms. An Analysis of News Recommendation in Light of Article 10 ECHR' in James Meese and Sara Bannerman (eds), The Algorithmic Distribution of News. Policy Responses, Palgrave Mcmillan (2022)

Judith Vermeulen, 'Recommended for You: 'You Don't Need No Thought Control': An Analysis of News Personalisation in Light of Article 22 GDPR' in Michael Friedewald et al (eds), Privacy and Identity Management. Data for Better Living: AI and Privacy, Springer International Publishing, pp. 190-205 (2020)

Judith Vermeulen and Eva Lievens, 'Autonomous motor vehicles and data protection' in Jan de Bruyne (ed), Autonomous motor vehicles: a multidisciplinary study of societal impact, Vanden Broele (2021)

Judith Vermeulen and Eva Lievens, 'Scientific research with (big) data and data protection law: untangling the tangle' in Wim Hardyns and Thom Snaphaan (eds), Big data and innovative methods for criminological research, Boom, pp. 149-80 (2020)

Opinion & blog 

Judith Vermeulen, Bulk retention of private-sector subscriber data for governmental purposes does not violate the Convention: Breyer v. Germany, Strasbourg Observers (2020)

Judith Vermeulen, Another case of violating privacy and personal data protection: Catt v. the United Kingdom, Strasbourg Observers (2019)

Judith Vermeulen, Big brother may continue watching you, Strasbourg Observers (2018)