Attempts by banned former mayor Lutfur Rahman to get back into Tower Hamlets politics has hit yet another crisis in his troubled career as he faces a four-day Solicitors Regulation Authority disciplinary tribunal which started this Tuesday.
It concerns whether he is fit to practice as a lawyer after a High Court election judgement in 2015 for fraud and malpractice in office as Executive Mayor.
Rahman, a family solicitor for 20 years, was reported to regulators after his disqualification as mayor, when he was found “personally guilty and guilty by his agents of illegal and corrupt practices” in the 2014 polls that re-elected him for his second term as Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlets.
His administration controlling an annual £1.2bn budget was brought down by his Election Trial soon after Communities Secretary Eric Pickles send in commissioners to the Town Hall over deals behind closed doors and cash being handed out to obscure groups without scrutiny. He was banned from office unril 2020.
Rahman was then reported to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority which has led to next week’s disciplinary tribunal hearing. He “failed to uphold the rule of law and administration of justice”, the tribunal is expected be told. The charges against him are now subject at the tribunal hearing for proof.
Meanwhile, his application to start a new political party was thrown out last week because the name ‘Tower Hamlets Together’ that he chose is the same as a community organisation in the East End linking health and social care.
