Tariq Rehman v The Bar Standards Board
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Hickinbottom |
| Judgment Date | 29 July 2016 |
| Neutral Citation | [2016] EWHC 2023 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | Case Nos CO/4920/2014, CO/2454/2015, CO/983/2016, CO/1262/2016 & CO/1398/2016 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 29 July 2016 |
[2016] EWHC 2023 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Hickinbottom
Case Nos CO/4920/2014, CO/2454/2015, CO/983/2016, CO/1262/2016 & CO/1398/2016
The Appellant/Claimant did not appear and was not represented.
Mark Mullins (in respect of Claim No CO/4920/2014: 27 July 2016),
Kate Mallison (in respect of Claim No CO/1262/2016: 27 July 2016),
and Alison Padfield and Gus Baker (29 July 2016) instructed by The Bar Standards Board) for TheBar Standards Board
Hearing dates: 27 and 29 July 2016
Approved Judgment
………………………..
Introduction
Before the Court there are two statutory appeals brought by Tariq Rehman ("Mr Rehman"), a barrister, against the findings of panels of the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Council of the Inns of Court ("the Disciplinary Tribunal").
First, in Claim No CO/4920/2014, Mr Rehman appeals against the decision of a panel (His Honour Michael Baker QC presiding) on 3 October 2014 which found him guilty of one count of professional misconduct, namely that, in a telephone conversation with a solicitor, he alleged that the solicitor had forged a date on a notice under section 21 of the Housing Act 1996, without having reasonably credible material that prima facie established fraud.
Second, in Claim No CO/1262/2016, he appeals against the decision of a panel (His Honour Philip Curl presiding) on 26 October 2015 which found him guilty of the following charges of professional misconduct, all as Head of Kings Court Chambers, Birmingham ("KCC").
i) Mr Rehman failed to take all reasonable steps to ensure that his chambers were administered competently and efficiently and were properly staffed in that a payment of £1,100 due to Mariann Szatmari as a refund of fees was delayed from March to August 2012 by reason of administrative incompetence or inefficiency of himself or staff employed by him.
ii) Mr Rehman failed to take all reasonable steps to ensure that his chambers were administered competently and efficiently in that payments of money due to public access clients by way of refund of fees or compensation recommended by the Legal Ombudsman ("the LeO") or agreed were delayed by administrative incompetence or inefficiency of himself or staff managed by him, namely (a) £900 due to Pinky Ramatula, (b) £450 due to Alexey Vorobyev and (c) £2,900 due to Volodymyr Lomaka.
At the hearing before me, the Bar Standards Board ("the BSB") has been represented by Mark Mullins (in Claim No CO/4620/2014 on 27 July 2016), Kate Mallison (in Claim No CO/1262/2016 on 27 July 2016) and Alison Padfield and Gus Baker today. Mr Rehman did not attend the hearing, nor was he represented; although he did make lengthy written submissions, including skeleton arguments, which I have considered with care.
Background
Mr Rehman was admitted to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn on 19 June 1998, and called to the Bar by that Inn on 9 March 2000. From 2011, he was Head of Chambers at KCC.
Over the last few years, the BSB has investigated a number of complaints against Mr Rehman in respect of his professional conduct, and thereafter prosecuted charges against him before the Disciplinary Tribunal, which is the body charged with determining such charges under the BSB Handbook (formerly the Code of Conduct of the Bar of England and Wales ("the Bar Code of Conduct")) and the Disciplinary Tribunal Rules as they have been from time-to-time. In addition, Mr Rehman has been the subject of a number of complaints to the LeO.
In four recent cases before different panels of the Disciplinary Tribunal, some charges have been found proved; and, in respect of each, Mr Rehman has lodged a statutory appeal to this court, under section 24 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
On 25 May 2016, following hearings on 22 April and 10 May 2016, I dismissed the appeals in Claim Nos CO/1860/2015 and CO/2454/2015, declaring the latter to be totally without merit. Except where the decision appealed is one to disbar – and no such decision has been made in respect of Mr Rehman – the decision of the High Court on such an appeal is final, and there is no further appeal from it (section 24(4) and (5) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013). At the same time, I refused permission to proceed in two judicial review claims brought by Mr Rehman against a variety of defendants in respect of disciplinary proceedings and LeO complaints to which he had been subject (Claim Nos CO/983/2016 and CO/1398/2016), declaring both claims to be totally without merit. The judgment of 25 May 2016 is now reported as [2016] EWHC 1199 (Admin).
In that judgment at paragraphs 54–62, by way of background, I set out the history of three so-called "frauds", in which a Ms Anal Sheikh made wide-ranging allegations that (amongst others) the Bar, the solicitors' limb of the legal profession and the judiciary were involved in a conspiracy against her. Those assertions have consistently been found by the courts to be baseless; and, as a result of her persistence in pursuing them, Ms Sheikh has been the subject of a civil restraint order ("CRO") since 2009, which is still current, being most recently extended by Patterson J last year following her judgment in AnalSheikh v Marc Beaumont; Anal Sheikh and Rabia Sheikh v Hugo Page and Nigel Meares [2015] EWHC 1923 (QB).
At paragraph 63 and following of the 25 May 2016 judgment, I set out how Ms Sheikh has been involved in Mr Rehman's disciplinary proceedings, and how those same allegations have infected Mr Rehman's response to those proceedings. For example, in Claim No CO/1398/2016, a judicial review claim, Mr Rehman relied upon a number of "generic" documents – which he also relied upon in Claim No CO/2454/2015, a statutory appeal – labelled "UK60", "UK60A", "UK61" and "UK62". In UK61, the grounds of appeal (and the grounds for the judicial reviews) were set out, which had sections entitled "Why Anal Sheikh v The Law Society [2005] EWHC 1409 (Ch) can dismantle the entire system of lawyers in the UK" (Section VII) and "The nexus between Anal Sheikh v The Law Society [2005] EWHC 1409 (Ch) and Tariq Rehman v The Bar Council" (Section VIII). Thus, Mr Rehman continued to pursue the claims which Ms Sheikh had previously made but which she was restrained from pursuing further. In dismissing both Claim Nos CO/1398/2016 and CO/1454/2015, I described the claims made in these documents as "legally hopeless" (at paragraph 69), and declared both the judicial review and the appeal to be totally without merit.
In the event, on 25 May 2016, I refused both appeals and refused permission to proceed in both judicial reviews, finding all but Claim No CO/1860/2015 to be totally without merit.
I understand that Mr Rehman has issued an application in the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) seeking to appeal that judgment. In parallel, on 14 June 2016, he issued two applications in this court.
In the first, Mr Rehman applies for a variety of relief, including an order that (i) my orders of 25 May 2016 are set aside, (ii) a number of named barristers (including Mr Mullins and Ms Padfield) be restrained from acting against Mr Rehman, (iii) I recuse myself, (iv) I be struck off the Solicitors' Roll, and (v) the matter be generally referred to the Attorney General.
In parallel with that application, Mr Rehman applied to the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) to stay the proceedings in which he is engaged, including the two statutory appeals now before me. That application was refused, as totally without merit, by Richards LJ on 26 July 2016. As I understand it, Mr Rehman is in the process of making some form of application to the Supreme Court, on the basis that Richards LJ too is a party to the conspiracy against him.
The application with which I have to deal is, largely, on an identical basis to that refused by Richards LJ. Insofar as it is the same, Richards LJ has considered the merits and found them to be wanting, and it would be inappropriate for me, at a lower level of the judiciary, to reconsider them; although I should say that I have seen nothing that leads me to disagree with Richards LJ's view.
Otherwise:
i) The application is essentially based on the premise that the named barristers and I are part of the conspiracy to which I have already referred, which has been consistently found to have no substance.
ii) It is said that the orders of 25 May 2016 should be set aside because they have been "procured by false and perjured evidence"; but, as I understand it, that is one of the bases upon which Mr Rehman is seeking to appeal my judgment to the Court of Appeal. The document supporting the application (labelled "UK72–5") is a purported analysis of the judgment, which forms the basis of the appeal.
iii) There are no sensible grounds put forward for the submission that I should recuse myself: there is simply no evidential foundation for the proposition that a fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility that I was or am or might reasonably be biased, or for any other basis upon which a recusal application could be made good. Simply because I have found other claims and appeals pursued by Mr Rehman to have been totally without merit does not mean that I cannot fairly and justly determine these further appeals brought by him, nor that an informed observer would have any reasonable doubt as to my ability so to do.
For those reasons, the application is refused. Given that the application is substantially based upon the...
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