Minister proposes Eiríkur and Hildur for Court of Appeal

Iceland’s justice minister has proposed that Eiríkur Elís Þorláksson and Hildur Briem be appointed judges at the Court of Appeal, mbl.is reports. Eiríkur’s appointment would take effect on September 1, 2026, and Hildur’s on October 5, 2026.

Eiríkur graduated in law from the University of Iceland in 2001 and completed an LL.M. at King’s College London in 2008. He qualified to practise before district courts in 2002 and before the Supreme Court in 2008. He also passed an examination qualifying him to serve as a board member of an insurance company in 2011.

After completing his law degree, Eiríkur worked for a time at the Uninhabited Lands Committee. In 2002, he joined a law firm, where he worked until 2011 and became a partner in 2004.

Since 2012, Eiríkur has worked at the School of Law at Reykjavik University, first as a lecturer and, since 2017, as an associate professor. He has also practised law during that period. From March 2019 to April 2024, he was dean of the school while continuing to teach at other universities.

Eiríkur served as an acting judge at the Court of Appeal for a total of about four months in 2024 and 2025. He was an alternate judge at the Court of Retrial from 2021 to 2026 and has served as an acting judge at the Court of Appeal since January 5, 2026.

He has written academic law books and numerous peer-reviewed articles. He has also served on the boards of several organisations, including Tryggingamiðstöðin hf. and Stoðir hf., as well as the board of Codex Publishing and the arbitration tribunal of the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce, which he chaired from 2022 to 2024.

Hildur has served as district court judge since 2011

Hildur graduated in law from the University of Iceland in 2000, completed an LL.M. at Lund University in 2005 and received an additional diploma in public administration from the University of Iceland in 2022. She qualified to conduct cases before a district court in 2001.

After graduating, Hildur worked as a representative in the prosecution division of the Reykjavík chief of police’s office. She joined the Office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman in 2005 and worked there until 2008, when she became a judge’s assistant at the District Court of East Iceland.

Hildur was appointed a district court judge and chief judge at the District Court of East Iceland in 2011. In 2018, she moved to the District Court of Reykjavík, where she has served as a judge since, apart from a roughly six-month period as an acting Court of Appeal judge in 2021.

She has served as an acting alternate judge at the Supreme Court in four cases and has been a judge at the Court of Retrial since February 2025.

Hildur has taught administrative law part time at the University of Iceland’s School of Law for about four years. Since 2016, she has served on an appeals committee handling disputes in church-related matters and has been a board member of the Icelandic Judges’ Association. She has also sat in several cases before the Public Procurement Complaints Committee and been appointed to a judicial administration committee on legal procedure and the efficiency of the courts.