Year of Call: 1987
Starting his career as apprentice to the Crown Agent in 1979, he went on to serve as a Procurator Fiscal Depute in Glasgow from 1981 to 1984 before going into private practice as a solicitor before coming the Bar in 1987.
As well as leading in a number of landmark Scottish cases, Mr. Gebbie has a distinguished international career as an Advocate. Just two examples of this are listed below.
In 2005 in the Affaire: Beauthier; he represented one of the lawyers who had acted for one of the surviving victims in the Marc Dutroux case in Belgium. The issues were novel, complex and difficult. The pleadings he presented, both oral and written, were entirely in French. The case was heard by a bench of 15 judges in Brussels and he was part of a multi-national trans EU defence team that achieved an acquittal for M. Beauthier.
As a Member of The List Counsel of The International Criminal Court, in 2006 he was the first counsel from any United Kingdom Bar to plead before the Court and was the second counsel, from any Bar, to represent “Victims” in the Court, cf: OTP -v- Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. This required advocacy in a then completely unique and novel, hybrid legal system.
When involved in the Lubanga case before the ICC Mr. Gebbie was appointed “English Language Interlocutor” by Members of the List Counsel of the International Court to represent their interests both with the Court and the Assembly of States Parties. This involved collaborating with the “French Language Interlocutor”, the Registry, NGOs and diplomats from the ASP to advance the interests of the Court and its development.
Mr. Gebbie is fluent in English, Swedish and French.