JUDr. Kateřina Šimáčková, Ph.D. comes from Brno, where she graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1988. She rounded-off her education after 1989 during research fellowships at universities in France and Germany, at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasburg, and at the Collège Universitaire d´Études Fédéralistes in Aosta in Italy.

In the years 1988 to 1990, she worked as a lawyer at a regional hygiene station, and then as Assistant to Constitutional Justice JUDr. Antonín Procházka at the Constitutional Court of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic and as an articled clerk. She was a barrister for fifteen years (1994–2009) and became acquainted with a number of branches of the law during her practical experience; she frequently appeared as a solicitor at the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, both in proceedings on constitutional complaints, and in proceedings on proposals for the abolition of laws, during which she represented senators from various political parties. In 2009, she switched from advocacy to justice as a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court, where she acted as Presiding Judge at the Social Administration Division and as member of the Competence and General Panel.

In the years 2007 to 2009, she was a member of the Government Legislative Council. She was appointed Member of the Committee for the Selection of Judges to the EU Civil Service Tribunal by the Council of the European Union for the period 2008 to 2012. Since 2010, she has been substitute member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the “Venice Committee”) for the Czech Republic and member of the examination committee for juridical examinations.

Since 1990, in addition to her work as a barrister and judge, she has also lectured at the Department of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law at Masaryk University in Brno, where she also defended her dissertation on the topic Taxation and the Legal State. Her teaching and publication activity focuses, first and foremost, on the issue of basic rights and freedoms. She teaches courses in constitutional law, human rights and the judiciary, political science, governmental studies, media law and ecclesiastical law, and also runs a clinic in media law and medical law, a course in human rights as applied in practice, a school of human rights and a human rights moot court.

She has published a number of specialised journal and anthology papers and is co-author of several law textbooks and other books (e.g. Communist Law in Czechoslovakia, In dubio pro libertate, and Commentaries on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms).

She is a member of the Scientific Board of the Faculty of Law at Charles University in Prague, Ad hoc Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, chair of the Brno group of the Church Law Society and a member of the Society for European and Comparative Law.

She has never been a member of any political party or political movement.

She was appointed Justice to the Constitutional Court by President Miloš Zeman on 7 August 2013.