Again, I’ve not yet had the dubious privilege of sitting in Court 38, a courtroom that even the Election Court judge Richard Mawrey QC himself has described as an “unofficial sauna” (there seems to be a problem with the heating system), so I can’t give a full flavour of events.
But I have read some of the transcripts from the proceedings.
Last week’s sittings seemed to be particularly testing. Records show Mawrey asked for Cllr Gulam Robbani to be excluded from the courtroom on Wednesday after he was accused by the petitioners’ barrister of intimidatory behaviour towards witnesses. Mawrey made no judgement on whether that was the case and stressed that the exclusion was no reflection on Lutfur Rahman.
The temperature between the two barristers, Duncan Penny QC for Lutfur and Francis Hoar for the petitioners, is also hotting up. During the mayor’s day in court on Friday, if that’s the right term to use, Penny complained to the judge that “these proceedings need to be taken control of, because what is going on at the moment is, in public, in very high profile proceedings, the most ridiculous conduct I have ever seen in a courtroom in 22 years on behalf of a member of the Bar.”
This complaint came after a long and detailed exchange between Hoar and Lutfur in which the genesis of the Tower Hamlets First party was explored. Part of the petitioners’ case is that the party was for all intents and purposes merely another embodiment of the mayor, so that acts which may have happened under its banner were linked directly to Lutfur.
Mawrey took a close interest in this exchange, which I’ll paste from the transcript below. He addressed a number of detailed questions to Lutfur about how involved he was in the party’s formation and what accounts and other records they kept. In short, Lutfur’s answer was that he delegated most of that to Cllr Alibor Choudhury. Lutfur said he was the leader but left the fine details to others.
Lutfur said the party was a “loose grouping” and that he hadn’t seen any party constitution, although he believed one existed. Further, Lutfur said the party didn’t have a bank account and that financing for things like election campaign materials was done through a system of donations in kind from supporters. Lutfur said the record keeping and accounts for these donations were kept properly at Alibor’s house, the party’s registered address.
As a result of the questioning on this matter, Mawrey agreed an urgent request from Hoar that these records and accounts be presented to the court by 10am tomorrow morning. Hoar indicated he’d want proof they hadn’t been “forged” over the weekend.
All strong stuff; Penny claimed these were “wild allegations”.
The excerpt below about the history of Tower Hamlets First, and how it was formed at a meeting in an unnamed councillor’s house in late summer autumn 2013 I found particularly fascinating, not least because Lutfur’s then deputy mayor Cllr Ohid Ahmed wasn’t there. But that’s just political anorak stuff.
The full transcript of Lutfur’s first day in court is here. It’s long, and he may have two or three more days of this.
The excerpt about this Tower Hamlets First business is also long, but well worth a read.
(Notes on the text: The first Q you read is a question from Francis Hoar. The formatting is as per the transcript so it’s in line numbers. Those numbers are the first items in each row. Occasionally you’ll see a page number appear e.g. “[page 1881]”; that’s the start of a new page and a new batch of line numbers. The page is headed with a title of whoever the exchange is between, e.g. “Lutfur Rahman – Hoar”. After every four pages, you’ll see this:
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This is the imprint of the company making the transcript, which someone has sent me. I think residents should have access to these records.
Here’s the exchange.
Q. Of course. You say this: “During my first term as mayor
22 I took part in negotiations with senior Labour Party officials
23 with a view to possible re-admission to the party for me and
24 all councillors who had followed me. … (reads to the
25 words)… many local residents were interested in standing for
[Page 1881]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 election and ex-councillors”, and you discussed this with them
3 and you set up Tower Hamlets First as an umbrella group under
4 which all candidates could stand. You say: “Although
5 registered, it is not a political party in the formal sense.
6 It does not have any formal membership … (reads to the
7 words)… although we have a manifesto.” You registered the
8 party with the Electoral Commission on 18th September 2013,
9 did you not?
10 A. That is the date, yes.
11 Q. We have already discussed this, so you are well aware of the
12 obligations pursuant to the Political Parties, Elections And
13 Referendums Act 2000, are you not?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. You are the leader of the party and, therefore, many of those
16 responsibilities bear down to you ultimately, do they not?
17 A. It is a lose grouping of people with no constitution, no
18 membership. We never had any group meetings as such and, yes,
19 we had to satisfy the minimum requirement which needed a
20 leader and a treasurer. So, I was the nominal leader and
21 Councillor Alibor Choudhury was the treasurer of this grouping
22 of people.
23 Q. As the leader of the party you have particular
24 responsibilities, do you not?
25 A. Yes, I accept that.
[Page 1882]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Q. Legally?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. When you registered the party, you registered emblems, did you
5 not?
6 A. Yes, sir.
7 Q. And you registered slogans; yes?
8 A. I left the actual registration, I delegated the registration
9 responsibility to Councillor Choudhury. I believe an emblem
10 was also registered.
11 Q. Two emblems?
12 A. Two —-
13 Q. They might be very similar?
14 A. Okay, forgive me.
15 Q. Fair enough. You tried to do that, you cover your back even
16 when you are doing these kind of things. Donations, again the
17 responsibility for donations lies with Councillor Choudhury as
18 treasurer. Who is the nominating officer?
19 A. The agent for the grouping was Councillor Choudhury.
20 Q. So, he is the treasurer and nominating officer?
21 A. The agent of the grouping, yes.
22 Q. Under the Act who is the nominating officer, pursuant to the
23 Act?
24 A. I think it is the agent who is the nominating officer.
25 Q. You think it is the agent, so you think it is Councillor
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[23] (Pages 1883 to 1886)
[Page 1883]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Choudhury?
3 A. It is Councillor Choudhury, he dealt with all the nominations.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: Just to remind you, Mr. Rahman, you have to
5 register a person as a party leader, a person as the party
6 nominating officer and a person as the party treasurer.
7 THE WITNESS: I believe it is, my Lord, Councillor Choudhury was
8 that officer.
9 Q. As both nominating officer and treasurer?
10 A. Yes.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: I see.
12 MR. HOAR: The PPERA is the Political Parties, Elections and
13 Referendums Act also requires you to control campaign
14 expenditure —-
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Can I just pursue this a moment. As
16 I understand it I appreciate you do not have schedule 4 of the
17 Act in front of you, that provides that if the same person is
18 named in two or more of those three offices you have got to
19 give the name and home address of some other specified officer
20 in the party. Were you aware of that and who else is given as
21 a specified officer of the party?
22 A. My Lord, I left, I delegated the responsibility for forming
23 the grouping, naming, obviously I was consulted on the name,
24 and the actual formalities to Councillor Choudhury.
25 MR. HOAR: So, if there is a mistake and his Lordship’s point and
[Page 1884]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 there is the name and address of somebody else, that is his
3 fault, is it?
4 THE WITNESS: Well, I do not know — when Councillor Choudhury
5 comes I am sure we can clarify. The Tower Hamlets First
6 grouping was accepted as a party and we were, Tower Hamlets
7 First were able to nominate councillors under its auspices and
8 the mayor. There was not a problem, so I believe the
9 formalities were complied with.
10 Q. You did not know what his Lordship just pointed out, did you,
11 until just now, you did not know that was the case?
12 A. No problems were brought to my attention when the groupings
13 were formed.
14 Q. Just to be clear, what your Lordship drew attention to was the
15 fact if there is one person named as nominating officer and
16 treasurer there needs to be another person’s name and address
17 registered. You did not know about that until his Lordship
18 brought that to your attention, did you?
19 A. Sure, I do not know all the exact specifics of what is
20 required —-
21 Q. No.
22 A. May I finish, please, Mr. Hoar. What is required to form a
23 party or a grouping. But what I do know, and I was informed
24 and I believe that is the case, that it was formed properly,
25 the formalities were complied with, hence we were able to use
[Page 1885]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 the emblem and the name going forward in the 2014 election.
3 Q. I do apologise by saying “no”, I did not mean to cut you off.
4 THE COMMISSIONER: Do you have a registered campaigners officer?
5 A. We do not have any registered campaigners as such. Although
6 Councillor Choudhury and Councillor (unclear) are my main two
7 campaign people.
8 MR. HOAR: Would you be aware that the nominating officer,
9 Councillor Choudhury, is responsible for giving written
10 authorisation for candidates to stand on behalf of the party.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. And for submitting lists of election candidates where
13 proportional representation is used, that does not apply in
14 your case, so we will ignore that. As a treasurer he is the
15 officer with legal responsibility for ensuring the party
16 complies with its financial requirements and he would be the
17 officer to whom most of the correspondence from the Electoral
18 Commission was sent?
19 A. Yes, and he complied with those requirements.
20 Q. We will come back to that. There is, is there not, a great
21 potential for anyone setting up a political party to get some
22 things wrong, is there not?
23 A. I think in any circumstances we are humans, we can make
24 mistakes. However, in this, in setting up a grouping Tower
25 Hamlets First the fact that nominations were accepted, the
[Page 1886]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 emblems were accepted, we were able to go into election under
3 its name, I believe it was properly formulated.
4 Q. Just to be clear where I am going, I am not at the moment
5 suggesting that anything did go wrong, but there is a
6 potential and the reason I ask that is this. There is a
7 potential for things to go wrong and therefore it is important
8 that the decision to register a political party is very well
9 thought out and planned. Would you agree with that?
10 A. Yes, and we did form a grouping, Tower Hamlets First.
11 Q. Did you receive legal advice?
12 A. As I said, I delegated to Councillor Choudhury, if there were
13 any problems we would have brought it to my attention.
14 Q. You would know if you received legal advice or not, would you
15 not?
16 A. Not necessarily. I left it to — as I said, it was the
17 responsibility of Councillor Choudhury to form and to attend
18 to the formalities and he did attend to the formalities, the
19 party was registered and in order to do that what was
20 necessary he attended to it.
21 Q. I am sorry, Mr. Rahman, have I got this right? You would not
22 know whether or not Councillor Choudhury had received legal
23 advice about setting up a political party for which you were
24 going to be leader; is that your evidence?
25 A. I do not know if Councillor Choudhury obtained legal advice.
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[24] (Pages 1887 to 1890)
[Page 1887]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 What I would have known if there were any issues, if there
3 were any problems in registering that group, it would have
4 certainly are been brought to my attention.
5 Q. I am sorry.
6 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Rahman, perhaps you can put some flesh on
7 the bones. Who took the decision that a political party would
8 be formed?
9 THE WITNESS: It was a number of councillors, I was there, my
10 Lord, and some supporters. It was not a public meeting, as
11 such, some of us took the decision when we could not be
12 re-admitted to the Labour Party.
13 Q. So, there was a meeting involving yourself and some
14 councillors and some supporters?
15 A. Sure, it was an formal meeting, my Lord. It was not a formal
16 meeting as such.
17 Q. Presumably you, as mayor, chaired it?
18 A. We were there, there was no chair. We had a discussion, it
19 was a discussion group and it was not a formal meeting that
20 required a chair and we decided —-
21 Q. Whose idea was it? Because obviously someone has to have the
22 idea in the first place before you can discuss it.
23 A. I think it was quite a few of us, because obviously — and
24 obviously I agreed with it, it was also my idea too, my Lord,
25 because people were approaching me, as I said in my statement,
[Page 1888]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 who wanted to stand on my track record, on our track record
3 and how well we were that if we did not have a name, we did
4 not have a banner, then there would so many independents who
5 would be claiming to be part of the mayor’s team and,
6 therefore, we said we would give it a name.
7 Q. Who thought up the name?
8 A. I think one of our councillors thought up the name.
9 Q. Not yourself?
10 A. No, my Lord.
11 MR. HOAR: Who?
12 THE WITNESS: I cannot remember.
13 Q. It is quite important. People spend hundreds of thousands of
14 pounds getting advice on branding. You know that, do you not?
15 A. We were not a sophisticated party in the traditional sense,
16 Mr. Hoar.
17 Q. Do you remember that logo for the London Olympics? Do you
18 remember how many hundreds of thousands were spent on that,
19 for example?
20 A. I do not know how much was spent but I know a lot of money was
21 spent.
22 Q. People spend fortunes because it is so important, do they not,
23 these kind of things, Tower Hamlets First or another sort of
24 name, they spend a lot of money on it, do they not?
25 A. We hardly spent any money. Our logo is a house, you can see
[Page 1889]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 it.
3 Q. It is an important decision, it is for a political party.
4 A. It is a very important decision. When we could not be
5 re-admitted to the Labour Party, we wanted a grouping of
6 people coming to together and clearly identified who they are
7 in terms of the election, that was it.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: If you want to form a political party there is
9 obviously a lot of paperwork to go through and you have to
10 find out what to do. As far as you can recall, who found out
11 what was to do and who did the paperwork.
12 THE WITNESS: Councillor Choudhury did — obviously he may have
13 sought help from a volunteer, someone may have helped him, but
14 he was the one who was tasked to go ahead and identify, find
15 out what the requirements are and attend to those
16 requirements.
17 Q. You must have signed at least one form as leader?
18 A. Yes, my name was used as the leader. My Lord, the name, it
19 was consensual when the name was branded around in that
20 discussion, more or less everyone said yes, Tower Hamlets
21 First because we wanted to concentrate on Tower Hamlets.
22 MR. HOAR: Do you remember you may or you may not take a bit of a
23 keen interest in politics.
24 THE WITNESS: A fair interest.
25 Q. Not just in Tower Hamlets, a bit more wider than —-
[Page 1890]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 A. I try to keep up with current affairs.
3 Q. You have campaigned, for example, Keith Vaz?
4 A. It was not Keith Vaz, it was Mr. Ashworth.
5 Q. Was it? And you are associated now with Mr. Galloway, to a
6 degree, are you not?
7 A. I know Mr. Galloway, I have never voted for him and I have
8 never supported him. I am associated with a number of
9 politicians. If you could call it association, know of them,
10 etcetera, but I have never been a member of Mr. Galloway’s
11 party nor have I voted for him.
12 Q. And you go to meetings around the country, do you not?
13 A. Not really. I have been to one or two meetings to other
14 places but I have been more occupied with Tower Hamlets, that
15 is my priority, that is my passion.
16 Q. You were once voted to be one of the top 50 most influential
17 figures on the left, were you not? Do you remember?
18 A. I do not know influential.
19 Q. In the country?
20 A. All I am interested in is Tower Hamlets.
21 Q. You therefore take a keen interest in politics nationally, do
22 you not?
23 A. I hardly do take an interest in what happens nationally.
24 Q. Do you remember, there was an election for leader of the
25 Scottish Conservative Party a couple of years ago? Do you
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[25] (Pages 1891 to 1894)
[Page 1891]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 remember that?
3 A. I cannot remember.
4 Q. Do you remember, one feature of the whole campaign was a
5 suggestion by one of the candidates Murdo Fraser, that the
6 name of the party should be changed. Do you remember that?
7 A. I cannot remember that.
8 Q. So, it was so important the naming of a political party that
9 it formed a important plank of a leadership election across
10 the whole of Scotland. Do you remember?
11 A. I do not recall that. I do not remember.
12 Q. Whether you remember that or not, you concede, do you not,
13 that naming a political party, especially at the outset, is
14 very important, do you not?
15 A. Tower Hamlets First, we placed the people of Tower Hamlets
16 First.
17 Q. Yet you cannot remember the name of the councillor who
18 suggested it?
19 A. When we had that discussion what name to be given, everyone
20 came up with more or less similar names. I cannot recall who
21 proposed it first.
22 Q. Where was this meeting?
23 A. Sorry?
24 Q. Where was the meeting?
25 A. It was one of our councillor’s houses.
[Page 1892]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Q. In a house?
3 A. In a councillor’s house.
4 Q. Who went?
5 A. As I have said, a number of councillors and one or two
6 supporters.
7 Q. Who?
8 A. I cannot give you the exact names.
9 Q. Why not?
10 A. Councillor Rabbani, Councillor Aminur Khan.
11 Q. Let’s go through them slowly so we can all take a note,
12 Mr. Rahman. Councillor Rabbani?
13 A. Yes. Councillor Aminur Khan, Councillor Rabina Khan.
14 Q. His wife?
15 A. Yes, Councillor Oliur Rahman.
16 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Choudhury?
17 THE WITNESS: Yes, Councillor Choudhury certainly he was there.
18 MR. HOAR: Kabir Ramis(?)?
19 THE WITNESS: No, he was there not.
20 Q. 0hid Ahmed?
21 A. No, he was not there.
22 Q. He was your deputy mayor at the time?
23 A. No, he was not there — sorry, he was my deputy mayor, but he
24 was not there. We informed — this was not a formal meeting
25 as such.
[Page 1893]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Q. No.
3 A. We never had any formal meetings. I had a chat with him
4 afterwards and I informed him.
5 Q. Nothing is formal, is it, Mr. Mayor?
6 A. We were not a formal grouping.
7 THE COMMISSIONER: Were most of these councillors members of your
8 cabinet?
9 THE WITNESS: Yes, my Lord, apart from Councillor Aminur Khan who
10 was not a member of my cabinet then — sorry, nor was
11 Councillor Rabbani. So, Councillor Rabina Khan was my cabinet
12 member; Councillor Alibor Choudhury was; Councillor Oliur
13 Rahman was my cabinet member.
14 Q. Who took the decision that Mr. Alibor Choudhury would do the
15 paperwork?
16 A. He was very reluctant, all of us pushed it his way.
17 MR. HOAR: When was it, this meeting?
18 THE WITNESS: It was some time in the end of autumn of 2013.
19 Q. Autumn?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Towards the end of autumn?
22 A. When did we form the party, Mr. Hoar?
23 Q. Well, you tell me. I did not form the party.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: I think it was accepted, Mr. Hoar, that it was
25 registered in September of 2013.
[Page 1894]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 MR. HOAR: But the witness said towards the end of autumn.
3 THE WITNESS: I did not say end of autumn.
4 MR. HOAR: Was that a slip of the tongue.
5 A. No, Mr. Hoar, I do say —-
6 Q. Are you getting confused?
7 A. You said end of autumn, I said some time in autumn.
8 Q. Sorry.
9 A. So late summer and autumn.
10 Q. As his Lordship correctly points out, the party was registered
11 on 18th September, which technically is summer. (Laughter)
12 THE COMMISSIONER: That is not your best point, Mr. Hoar, by a
13 long way.
14 MR. HOAR: That really is the head of a pin. I am not picking up
15 on that. (To the witness) Anyway, it was in autumn, was it,
16 this meeting?
17 A. Late summer.
18 Q. Late summer/early autumn, but you cannot remember when
19 exactly. It is a pretty important meeting though, is it not?
20 A. I mean, you describe it as important, I do not know what you
21 mean by that. We waited until the last minute to be
22 re-admitted into the Labour Party. We were hoping that we
23 could be re-admitted into the Labour Party. We had to go —
24 could have all stayed independent, it would not have mattered
25 to us. The only reason why we formed and gave it the name,
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[Page 1895]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 formed a loose grouping so that a number of independents could
3 not, we knew who the independent was associated with us and
4 would stand with us rather than anyone coming along claiming,
5 “I am independent, I am Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s” —-
6 Q. I understand all that?
7 A. That is all.
8 Q. It made eminent sense. But, nevertheless, the decision to
9 register a political party was an important decision?
10 A. In that sense, it is important, yes.
11 Q. Yet you cannot remember specifically who was there, where it
12 was and when it was?
13 A. No, I am telling you —-
14 Q. You can remember where it was?
15 A. It was in a councillor’s house. There were a number of
16 councillors were there, not everyone was there. During a
17 discussion this came up and the councillors agreed and we
18 agreed that this is how we will move forward. If it was
19 something preplanned and organised in advance, then all the
20 councillors would have been invited.
21 Q. Did you think of taking a minute of the meeting?
22 A. I believe there was, as I said it was not a formal meeting, I
23 do not believe there was a minute but Councillor Choudhury
24 took some notes.
25 Q. So, there were notes some notes of this meeting?
[Page 1896]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 A. He took some notes on the back of a paper.
3 Q. On the back of an envelope?
4 A. I do not know what it was, paper.
5 Q. Has he still got the envelope?
6 A. I doubt he has got — the paper, I do not say envelope.
7 I doubt that he has it.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Rahman, perhaps you can help me on a couple
9 of matters. Can you recall who paid the fee for registration?
10 THE WITNESS: I did, my Lord.
11 Q. As I understand it, an application for registration must be
12 accompanied by a copy of the party’s constitution?
13 A. Sure.
14 Q. So, there is a constitution?
15 A. I do not believe there is a constitution, so I do not know how
16 they got over that. (Laughter)
17 MR. HOAR: There is no constitution?
18 THE WITNESS: There may be aims and objectives set out, I do not
19 believe there is a constitution.
20 Q. Are you —-
21 A. Can I finish, Mr. Hoar. A constitution as such in the
22 tradition of the Labour Party or the Conservative Party —-
23 Q. So, it is rather the English constitution of British
24 constitution latterly, it is an unwritten constitution, it is
25 made up of conventions and other documents; is that how it is?
[Page 1897]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 A. No, I am not saying that. All I am saying, in terms of a
3 written constitution that the major parties have, I do not
4 believe there is a constitution in that sense.
5 Q. So, you are in breach of the Political Parties —-
6 A. No, I am not saying we are in breach —-
7 Q. Well, you are.
8 A. —- I am sure Councillor Choudhury, when he comes here, can
9 give a perfect answer as to how the party was formed.
10 Q. But you do not believe there is a written constitution, do
11 you, that is what you have just said?
12 THE COMMISSIONER: You would presumably know, as the leader of
13 then party, if there was a written constitution.
14 A. There was not a constitution in the tradition sense, my Lord.
15 But in order to qualify —-
16 Q. In order to register you have to, theoretically at least, to
17 send with your application form a copy of the party’s
18 constitution, but you have never seen one?
19 A. I have not seen a constitution as such, but there may well be
20 a memorandum to support that application, there may well be
21 one in existence.
22 Q. Can I take this a little further. Also required by schedule 4
23 to the 2000 Act is this, the 2000 Act says, section 26: “A
24 party may not be registered unless it has adopted a scheme
25 which set outs the arrangement for regulating the financial
[Page 1898]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 affairs of the party for the purposes of the Act.” One of the
3 documents that you have to submit, together with the
4 constitution, is the draft of the scheme for regulating the
5 financial affairs of the party. Have you ever seen a draft
6 scheme for regulating the financial affairs of the party?
7 A. A number of documents, as I have said, Councillor Choudhury
8 attended to forming the grouping and the party. On its
9 application a number of documents were shown to me and
10 I believe I had to sign a piece of a paper. I do not know,
11 I cannot remember the exact documents. As I said, Councillor
12 Choudhury will be in a very good position to explain —-
13 MR. HOAR: Oh yes.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: As the leader of the party, presumably you
15 obviously would take some interest in the financial affairs of
16 the party.
17 A. Absolutely.
18 Q. But you are not aware of the draft scheme which the Act
19 requires?
20 A. I am not aware of the draft scheme as such. What I am aware
21 that declarations are made and returns are submitted on a
22 regular basis.
23 MR. HOAR: Mr. Rahman, it does sound rather like you did not get
24 legal advice about this, does it not? It really does sound
25 like you did not get any legal advice at all from what you are
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 saying?
3 THE WITNESS: I believe Councillor Choudhury would be the best
4 person to answer that question.
5 Q. You, as the leader, would not think it wise as a lawyer who
6 knows the limitations of our specialism to get legal advice
7 from an election law specialist about registering a political
8 party?
9 A. I delegated the responsibility and it is proper to delegate
10 responsibility.
11 Q. When you were a respondent to this petition you instructed one
12 of the three leading firms who were specialist in election
13 law, did you not?
14 A. Yes, Mr. Hoar.
15 Q. I may be unfair to them, they may even be in the top two, you
16 did that because of the importance and gravity of the election
17 petition, did you not?
18 A. I needed expert advice and we got expert advice.
19 Q. In addition to it being important to get expert advice about
20 an election petition, it is pretty important to get it about
21 registering a political party, is it not?
22 A. Mr. Choudhury may have got that advice, I do not know.
23 Q. Again, you are seriously asking this court to believe that if
24 Mr. Choudhury got legal advice you would not know about it?
25 A. As I said earlier on, if there were any problems I asked him
[Page 1900]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 to bring it to my attention. So, obviously there were not any
3 problems, otherwise he would have done so.
4 Q. For example, breaching the Act can be a criminal offence, can
5 it not?
6 A. It may well be.
7 Q. For example, there is a criminal penalty pursuant to section
8 47 for submitting improper accounts, is there not?
9 A. Accounts have been submitted.
10 Q. His Lordship has just drawn your attention to a part of the
11 Act that you had absolutely no knowledge about, has he not?
12 A. Councillor Choudhury, who formed the party, in whom I have
13 full confidence, my Lord, and no issues were brought to my
14 attention —-
15 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Choudhury, I understand, is not legally
16 qualified. Am I correct?
17 A. No, he is not, my Lord.
18 MR. HOAR: You are, though, are you not?
19 A. Not in election law.
20 Q. And not in contractual law either.
21 A. I am not a contractual lawyer.
22 Q. No, which is why you think you might want to get a lawyer who
23 is experienced at least in drafting an incorporated
24 association’s constitution, would you not?
25 A. Mr. Choudhury formed the grouping. He attended to the
[Page 1901]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 formalities. We were able to go into the 2014 election with a
3 properly constituted grouping of Tower Hamlets First.
4 Q. A properly constituted grouping.
5 A. Of Tower Hamlets First. No issues were brought to my
6 attention so I can reasonably assume that there were no
7 problems.
8 Q. So you are a party whose leader does not know whether the
9 party has received legal advice, a party which does not have a
10 constitution, a party which is in breach of the Act for not
11 having a constitution and a party, frankly, whose leader — I
12 will stop there as it is going to be rude so I will not —
13 whose leader knows little, if anything, about the procedure
14 for registering political parties.
15 A. Mr. Hoar, that is not my expertise. We wanted to form a
16 party, a grouping, and we did so. Councillor Choudhury had
17 the responsibility to attend to those matters and he kindly
18 did. We went into the 2014 Mayoral and Council election under
19 the umbrella of Tower Hamlets First.
20 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Rahman, help me on the question of
21 constitution. One would expect the constitution of a
22 political party to contain rules for the admission of people
23 to the political party. I imagine you would be familiar with
24 that from your days in the Labour Party.
25 A. Sure.
[Page 1902]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Q. What I cannot understand is what was your mechanism for
3 admitting people to Tower Hamlets First as a party if you do
4 not have a constitution?
5 A. Sure. I am not saying there is not a original document, my
6 Lord, setting out its aims and objectives and terms of conduct
7 etc. It is not a constitution in the traditional sense as the
8 Labour Party or the Conservative Party or the Lib Dem Party
9 has because we are not a party in the traditional sense. We
10 do not have a membership. Our members are the councillors and
11 the candidates who stood on the platform of Tower Hamlets
12 First.
13 Q. If someone came to you and said, “Mr. Rahman, I would like to
14 stand as a candidate for your party”, are there rules in
15 existence which would govern whether you admitted that person
16 or not or would you simply yourself decide whether or not he
17 was going to be a candidate?
18 A. No, clearly there was a pack, my Lord, and Mr. Choudhury, as
19 an agent, went through that pack which has the protocol of the
20 Electoral Commission guidance and some basic norms about what
21 is required to be a candidate. The process was this.
22 Potential candidates approached me at the first instance and I
23 asked some basic question. We did not have a traditional
24 machinery as such. As I said, it was a grouping of people.
25 We asked some basic questions as to what qualifies them to be
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2 a candidate. Those people were then passed on to Councillor
3 Choudhury, who went through the formalities. There was a pack
4 that was in existence.
5 Q. So in effect Councillor Choudhury chooses the candidates.
6 A. I did the initial vetting, my Lord, and the candidates were
7 passed on to Councillor Choudhury to go through the
8 formalities before they could be nominated as our candidate.
9 MR. HOAR: I want to explore that more, if I may, but can I just
10 ask you about membership, please. How do you join Tower
11 Hamlets First?
12 A. We do not have a membership, a formal membership as such.
13 Q. Really?
14 A. No.
15 Q. So why do you say at paragraph 66 on page 17 of your witness
16 statement: “Whilst not a strictly organised party, Tower
17 Hamlets First is certainly distinguishable from me and it
18 would be an insult to its members to assume that they joined
19 simply to support me” so how do you join?
20 A. Councillors.
21 Q. No.
22 A. Councillors.
23 Q. You said “members” —-
24 A. What I want to —-
25 Q. Do you want to correct that?
[Page 1904]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 A. Let me correct that, Mr. Hoar.
3 Q. You want to correct paragraph 66, do you?
4 A. Can I just say what I meant by that is that we do not have a
5 formal membership, Mr. Hoar. We do not have members as such
6 per se. Our members, the members of Tower Hamlets First are
7 its councillors and the candidates who stood for councillors
8 who did not make it through. That is all it is.
9 Q. So no subscription, no membership card, no statement of values
10 like the Labour Party, no constitution, no membership list,
11 you do not know how many members you have, there are no
12 disciplinary proceedings, there is nothing, is there? There
13 is nothing to it.
14 A. I would not accept that.
15 Q. It does not even comply with the minimum requirements of the
16 Act.
17 A. I am sure it complied and therefore it formed a grouping. It
18 formed a party to go into the 2014 election.
19 MR. HOAR: I think you have just discovered that it does not. Can
20 I take you, please, to the Labour Party rule book in relation
21 to candidate selection for local government, please, after his
22 Lordship has asked some questions.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: You say that you are unaware of the scheme for
24 running the financial affairs of the party, which appears to
25 be an obligatory document, but that is something on which
[Page 1905]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Councillor Choudhury may help us. How are the financial
3 affairs regulated?
4 A. My Lord, I believe it would be incorrect if I said I did not
5 know of its financial obligations. Of course I know of its
6 financial obligations.
7 Q. No, its financial arrangements.
8 A. I was required to sign some documents when the grouping was
9 formed and I do know, and I do ask, that regulatory returns
10 are submitted and declarations are made about the financial
11 affairs of the grouping, of the party.
12 Q. But returns of what? How does money come in and how does
13 money go out?
14 A. Donations, my Lord, donations, expenditure. We have to submit
15 a return to Companies House and to the Electoral Commission,
16 the relevant authorities, on a regular basis. Those are
17 submitted.
18 Q. I follow that, but how are the financial affairs arranged?
19 That is something that, at the moment, I am a bit baffled
20 about. Presumably you have a bank account.
21 A. We do not have a bank account. (Laughter) We are not a party
22 in that sense. People will make commitments, my Lord, and the
23 money will be spent.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: For example, if someone comes to you,
25 Mr. Rahman, and says, “I think you are doing a great job. I
[Page 1906]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 want to put £10,000 into your campaign.” You would not
3 presumably expect them to produce a pile of non-consecutive
4 fifties. How is it physically paid?
5 MR. HOAR: Or maybe you would.
6 MR. PENNY: No, sorry, that, I am afraid, is exactly what is going
7 on in this court at the moment. It is the pursuit of a
8 vendetta.
9 MR. HOAR: Really?
10 MR. PENNY: Including comments along those lines. That is quite
11 inappropriate in the public sphere.
12 THE COMMISSIONER: Your protest is noted.
13 A. My Lord, can I explain?
14 Q. Yes, I would like you to explain. I am interested to know the
15 mechanics of it.
16 A. My Lord, we do not have a bank account because we do not have
17 so much money coming into us. For this leaflet, for example,
18 we would not know if this leaflet would cost X amount; yes? A
19 volunteer would ask me, “Look, this would cost this amount and
20 the payments will be made by me to go to the printers or by
21 someone else —-
22 MR. HOAR: The trouble is, Mr. Rahman —-
23 THE COMMISSIONER: Let Mr. Rahman finish.
24 A. If someone decides to support us, my Lord, we would not ask
25 for the money to be given to us. We would say, “Please pay on
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 our behalf to the printers” so they would make the
3 disbursements on our behalf.
4 Q. How is that then logged?
5 A. We would know. We would write the name of the donor’s name —
6 Mr. Choudhury will explain that when he comes in — or the
7 person who has paid the money directly. The details will be
8 noted and the amount will be noted. The amount will be
9 declared at the appropriate stage, my Lord.
10 Q. So there would somewhere be an account book of some kind in
11 which the donations would be noted.
12 A. Yes, my Lord.
13 Q. And the expenditure that is made, for example, on the leaflet.
14 A. Yes.
15 MR. HOAR: So, Mr. Rahman, in that case, you will not have any
16 problem at all bringing that book on Monday morning, will you?
17 A. Mr. Choudhury will explain and will produce whatever —-
18 Q. No, Mr. Rahman, I am saying to the court that I am quite happy
19 for you to ask Mr. Choudhury whether he can provide that to
20 you over the weekend and if he can, you will be quite prepared
21 to bring it to the court on Monday morning, will you not?
22 A. You have said what you have said. I will need to speak to Mr.
23 Choudhury, Councillor Choudhury.
24 Q. I look forward to seeing it.
25 A. He is the one who deals with the financial affairs and I am
[Page 1908]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 sure he can explain.
3 Q. Good.
4 A. And the process is that, my Lord.
5 MR. HOAR: Because the problem with your —-
6 MR. PENNY: My Lord, I would like to make some submissions,
7 please.
8 MR. HOAR: That is fine.
9 MR. PENNY: I would like to make some submissions.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: In the absence of the witness or not?
11 MR. PENNY: The witness is entitled to be present. I am content
12 for the witness to be removed whilst I make the submissions.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: No, if you are happy, he can stay there.
14 MR. PENNY: I want to invite my learned friend to cease making
15 statements or expressions of personal opinion. I would like
16 him to act as an advocate and an advocate who asks questions.
17 MR. HOAR: That is a completely inappropriate objection, if I may
18 say so, my Lord. I am doing nothing but asking questions and
19 putting propositions to a witness. It is a ludicrous
20 objection, if I may say so.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: As with jokes, it is the way he asks them. I
22 think Mr. Penny does take the point that occasionally your
23 questions do stray —-
24 MR. HOAR: I apologise for that.
25 THE COMMISSIONER: —- into the area of —-
[Page 1909]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 MR. PENNY: Melodrama.
3 MR. HOAR: They are not comments though. They are propositions to
4 be put to the witness and that is entirely proper, of course.
5 Can I take you back, Mr. Rahman, to the issue of donations.
6 What you have said is that you have no bank account; yes?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Therefore, there is no one record of the donations that your
9 political party will receive, is there?
10 A. There are records, Mr. Hoar, there are records.
11 Q. But the records will be sporadic records of donations and
12 payments to different organisations rather than one bank
13 account, will they not?
14 A. “Sporadic” is your word. There are records. There is a
15 system in place which clearly shows what bills have been paid
16 and how they have been paid.
17 Q. But that record is entirely a matter for Councillor Choudhury.
18 How he puts that together is crucial, is it not?
19 A. It is a proper record and proper declarations are made to the
20 appropriate authorities.
21 Q. So the risk for Councillor Choudhury is that if somebody says,
22 “Councillor Choudhury, I do not believe you are taking an
23 accurate record”, he has got no way of saying, “No, it is all
24 going into this bank account”, has he?
25 A. Money does not come — that is why we do not have a bank
[Page 1910]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 account. Money is expenditure on money that is spent,
3 incurred costs, costs incurred and the donor will pay for
4 money spent directly.
5 Q. We have to take it on trust from Councillor Choudhury that he
6 is keeping an accurate record, do we not?
7 A. Councillor Choudhury keeps records and we have full confidence
8 in him in keeping records.
9 Q. We have to keep it entirely on his trust, do we not?
10 A. And —-
11 THE COMMISSIONER: Where are the records kept?
12 A. Councillor Choudhury keeps those.
13 Q. At home?
14 A. Yes, his home is the registered address.
15 Q. His home is the registered address of the party.
16 A. Yes, my Lord.
17 Q. So if any suggestion was made that he was not keeping an
18 accurate record, it would just be his word against somebody
19 else’s, would it not?
20 A. I am sure it could be cross-referenced.
21 Q. How?
22 A. Ask Councillor Choudhury when he comes in.
23 Q. You do not think that as leader, you ought to perhaps keep a
24 closer eye on these sorts of things, Mr. Rahman?
25 A. I do. I have full confidence in Councillor Choudhury.
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Q. Do you?
3 A. He is the Council’s Cabinet member for resources and finance.
4 He has done a good job for the last five years.
5 Q. But you have just heard from his Lordship that, unbeknownst to
6 you, he has breached the Act by not having a constitution.
7 A. Well, let us —-
8 THE COMMISSIONER: No, Mr. Hoar, that is not entirely fair. What
9 the witness says is if there is a constitution, he has no idea
10 where it is or what it is or even of its existence. There may
11 be, in Mr. Choudhury’s home, a copy of the constitution, which
12 at some stage I shall be shown. All Mr. Rahman says is, “If
13 there is, I have not got one and I have not seen it.”
14 MR. HOAR: You are much more of a Tory than a Whig, are you not?
15 You like your unwritten constitutions, do you not, Mr. Rahman?
16 THE COMMISSIONER: I think that is fighting talk with a gentleman
17 of the Left.
18 MR. HOAR: I know. I apologise for the comment. Anyway, can you
19 please turn to this document, Appendix 4, “NEC procedures for
20 the selection of local government candidates”. I am just
21 going to take you, if I may, to the start. These are
22 procedural rules. This is the 2013 rule book so it may have
23 changed a little since your time in the Labour Party.
24 THE COMMISSIONER: Can I just pursue something if I may.
25 Mr. Rahman, were you in court when a Mr. Dawber gave evidence?
[Page 1912]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 A. For part of it, my Lord.
3 Q. This was a dinner that was held at Island Gardens. Mr. Dawber
4 told us that this was a political donation of the kind that
5 his company makes pretty well across the board.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. He expressed that they had done the figures and they had
8 worked out exactly how much it was. I cannot remember, but it
9 was something like £45,000. I will be reminded by Mr. Penny,
10 I am sure. As that is a political donation in this case to
11 your party, Tower Hamlets First, what would the mechanism be
12 for the party to record that donation?
13 A. Sure. Councillor Choudhury, in that instance, recorded the
14 value of the donation in terms of the meals, in terms of the
15 hall and the other materials that was attributed to Canary
16 Wharf, my Lord, and that, together with other expenditure,
17 other donations, was declared to the appropriate authorities.
18 There is a proper procedure in place where he records those
19 kinds of transactions. That is an example of where we did not
20 need an account, we do not need an account, my Lord, where
21 money was paid directly from the donor to the provider of the
22 service.
23 Q. These are reasonably substantial sums, of course. This is not
24 a few pounds on a leaflet. This is many thousands of pounds.
25 A. No, absolutely. This is the biggest sum as such that we
[Page 1913]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 received from someone who helped us.
3 Q. As I understand it, Mr. Rahman, what you are saying is that we
4 would be better off asking Mr. Choudhury about all this.
5 A. Yes. That is exactly how it happened.
6 MR. HOAR: Can I take you, please, to your file V, page 1390. Do
7 you have that?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Before I get to that, it is right, is it not, that as a party
10 you need a brand; yes?
11 A. Yes, something to recognise it by.
12 THE COMMISSIONER: By a brand, do you mean a logo?
13 MR. HOAR: I mean it in the most loose sense, incredibly loose,
14 rather like THF. I am sorry about that.
15 MR. PENNY: You do it all the time. I do not why you are
16 apologising.
17 MR. HOAR: At page 1390, the brand is this, “Mayor Lutfur Rahman
18 transforming Tower Hamlets three years on”; yes?
19 A. That was the logo, that was the brand, that was the signage we
20 used for this booklet.
21 Q. Page 2, “Three years on”. Turn the page. There is a very
22 nice picture of you, Mr. Rahman. It is a very nicely produced
23 document, is it not? Just flipping through it, it is
24 incredibly impressive. It is very, very nicely set out with
25 lovely pictures, with extremely catchy slogans, the kind of
[Page 1914]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 thing that would prompt anyone to vote for you, is it not?
3 You like it. Presumably you do like it because you used it.
4 A. It is about giving the message of what we had delivered, what
5 we had done as an administration for the last three years, the
6 preceding three years.
7 Q. Page 2 is a nice picture of you and a quote from Mayor Rahman.
8 Page 3 — page 4 and 5 on the original document — “Executive
9 Mayor’s foreword” with another picture of you and a quote.
10 Pages 6 and 7 show a nice picture of you and housing and
11 regeneration with a quote, not from you on that occasion.
12 Page 8 is a nice picture of you with a girl at a school and
13 then a nice picture of you with a police officer at page 9.
14 Then we go on to page 10. There are two pictures of you and a
15 picture of you at page 11. You are in the background on page
16 12, but you are in the foreground on page 13. There is a
17 small picture of you on pages 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 on the
18 timetable, 22 all over the place and your name at the end;
19 yes?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. But it is not about you.
22 A. It is about me, my administration, what we have done during
23 the last three years. With the booklet, the money was paid
24 for by me.
25 Q. By you. You paid for it?
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 A. Not the Council. It was not Council resources. It was our
3 resources.
4 Q. I am not suggesting it was. Who paid for that brochure? Who
5 paid for it?
6 A. Well, clearly I paid for it, we paid for it. I do not know
7 whether it was a donation or whether it went from my
8 resources.
9 Q. You cannot remember.
10 A. I can go back and find out.
11 Q. But Councillor Choudhury has got good records of this.
12 A. Yes, absolutely.
13 Q. And he will be able to give it to you over the weekend?
14 A. We know exactly how much was spent on producing this booklet
15 and the number of booklets —-
16 Q. He will be able to give it to you over the weekend, will he
17 not?
18 A. When he comes in, you can ask him. I am sure he will provide
19 it to you.
20 Q. No, he will be able to give it to you over the weekend.
21 A. He can give the information.
22 Q. To you so that you can bring it to court on Monday morning.
23 If Councillor Choudhury has good records, they must be easily
24 to hand, must they not, Mr. Rahman; yes?
25 A. (No response)
[Page 1916]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Q. If Councillor Choudhury has good records that are in keeping
3 with the Electoral Commission’s rules and the law, he will
4 find it very easy to get a copy.
5 A. Councillor Choudhury keeps the records. He has the receipts
6 and he has got the records.
7 Q. It is up to you. You can bring it on Monday or not, as you
8 wish. You say this in your witness statement at R17. It is
9 paragraph 66: “Whilst not a strictly organised party, Tower
10 Hamlets First is certainly distinguishable from me and it
11 would be an insult to its members to assume that they joined
12 simply to support me. They agree with me and accept my
13 leadership because my record aligns with their values.”
14 Then you say, “Tower Hamlets First would be perfectly
15 capable of existing without my presence.” Can I take you,
16 please, to the regulated entry profile of your political
17 party, Tower Hamlets First, with the Electoral Commission? It
18 is a document you must be familiar with bearing in mind you
19 are the leader of that political party. (Same handed)
20 Can I ask you to look at right at the bottom. These are
21 the slogans that you have registered for your political party:
22 “Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s team”; “Lutfur Rahman’s team”; “Lutfur
23 Rahman’s progressive alliance”; “the Mayor’s team”; “Mayor
24 Lutfur Rahman’s independents”; “Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s
25 community alliance”; “East End independents”; “Tower Hamlets
[Page 1917]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 First”; “putting Tower Hamlets first”; “Lutfur Rahman, Tower
3 Hamlets First”; “Lutfur Rahman, putting Tower Hamlets First”.
4 How many of those refer to you?
5 A. Quite a few.
6 Q. Can you count? I asked how many.
7 A. I said quite a few.
8 Q. Eight out of eleven. Eight of eleven of your slogans have
9 your name on them. The first of them talks about your team,
10 does it not? They use your title, “the Mayor”, which you
11 like, do you not? You like your title, do you not? Your
12 civil servants call you “the Mayor” all the time.
13 A. I have no comment. They also call me Lutfur.
14 Q. Your face and your quotes appear all over that document that
15 we have just seen, do they not?
16 A. We chose the name of the grouping, Tower Hamlets First. We
17 may have given it a number of descriptions but, at the end of
18 the day, the description we gave was Tower Hamlets First,
19 Mr. Hoar.
20 Q. Can you please turn to R43.21, Mr. Rahman, in the same file,
21 file R, with your witness statement?
22 A. Which paragraph?
23 Q. 43.21. It is paragraph 100: “I have read the second statement
24 of Ahmed Hussain ….” and then it goes on into other matters
25 which need not concern us. “In respect of paragraph 35, there
[Page 1918]
1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 is no condition attached to grants requiring plaques to be put
3 up saying that the plaque project was opened by the Mayor.
4 This is just custom and practice for all projects under my
5 administration.” You wrote that just weeks ago, did you not,
6 in January; yes? Did you not?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. It is your witness statement.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. “No requirement, just custom and practice”. Those are paid
11 for by the taxpayer, are they not?
12 A. It is usual for leaders of the counsel, whether the current
13 leadership or previous leadership, if you go around Tower
14 Hamlets, you will see where the leaders have opened
15 initiatives, where the leader’s name has gone on plaques to
16 acknowledge that. It is usual. I can assure you that I am
17 not the first one. It has happened under the leadership of my
18 predecessors, Councillor Denise Jones, Michael Keith and
19 Councillor Abbas. There is signage — you may call it plaques
20 — to acknowledge that.
21 Q. So, to take one example at random, Councillor Abbas would have
22 “Leader, Councillor Abbas” all over Council documents, would
23 he?
24 A. Councillor Abbas has opened new housing where a plaque or
25 plaques have been installed. He is the leader of the Council,
ERLAM & OTHERS v RAHMAN & WILLIAMS 20 FEBRUARY 2015 PROCEEDINGS DAY 14
TEL: (020) 7067 2900 E-MAIL: info@martenwalshcherer.com FAX: (020) 7831 6864
MARTEN WALSH CHERER LTD 1ST FLOOR, 6-9 QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE LONDON, WC2A 1HP
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 Councillor Abbas.
3 Q. And the brand of the Council would be “Leader, Councillor
4 Abbas”, would it?
5 A. Sorry, you are talking about the branding of the Council? We
6 are in a different area. We are in the Mayoralty. The change
7 in governance, people need to know. It was not a leader of a
8 cabinet system. It was a mayoralty system. The decisions had
9 to be taken by the Mayor and the Mayor was responsible for
10 those decisions. Therefore, it was only proper, given a need
11 to know and understand the mayoralty. The Mayor was
12 accountable to them. The leader was not accountable to the
13 electorate, to the people of the Borough, apart from his or
14 her ward. Here, we have a Mayor who is responsible to the
15 entire population of Tower Hamlets.
16 MR. HOAR: Could you turn to file G, please, Mr. Rahman?
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Are we turning to another matter?
18 MR. HOAR: No, but it would be a convenient moment.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: I think possibly that we can all go and cool
20 off for ten minutes from this unofficial sauna and reconvene
21 at twenty-minutes past three.
22 (A short break)
23 MR. HOAR: Mr. Rahman is entitled to be present, because he is a
24 party, of course, and I am going to make the application that
25 I make now in public. I apply for immediate (or as soon as
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 possible, not later than 9 p.m. tonight) disclosure, pursuant
3 to 31.19, of the accounts of this political party; and the
4 disclosure should be to the High Court, I think. There is a
5 real concern that if we leave it any later than this,
6 documents could be manufactured; and there is evidence that
7 documents have already been manufactured in this case. You
8 saw it yesterday, my Lord. So, I ask that you make that order
9 now, whether by witness summons or otherwise.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. Sorry, what was the —-
11 MR. HOAR: Well —-
12 THE COMMISSIONER: 39 —-
13 MR. HOAR: 31.19, I think, is disclosure, third party disclosure.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: So, who would be required to —-
15 MR. HOAR: Alibor Choudhary is said to have this.
16 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. Even were I with you, there would be
17 nobody in the High Court at 9 o’clock on a Friday evening,
18 that is for sure; and certainly not me.
19 MR. HOAR: The problem is, if we leave it over the weekend, we
20 will have absolutely no way of knowing whether it has been
21 manufactured.
22 THE COMMISSIONER: I follow that. But were such an event to take
23 place — which there seems at the moment, on the evidence
24 I have, no assumption to be made on the matter — then would
25 that not —-
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 MR. HOAR: Yes, it would. I follow your Lordship’s thinking.
3 THE COMMISSIONER: On the other hand, I think that it would be
4 desirable, given Mr. Rahman’s evidence with regard to the
5 position of Mr. Choudhury as his agent and as the Treasurer of
6 the party, if the accounting records of the party were brought
7 to court by somebody for start of business on Monday. I would
8 also quite like to see (if such exists) whatever document was
9 sent to the Electoral Commission as being the party’s
10 constitution and whatever document was sent to the Electoral
11 Commission as being the draft of the scheme for the management
12 of the affairs under section 26.
13 MR. PENNY: Surely, the Electoral Commission is the correct party
14 to whom this ought to be directed. If you are going to stand,
15 as my learned friend is, and make a wild allegation in
16 public — and it is not the first one, let’s face it — then
17 why do you not go to the Government body that regulates the
18 elections, instead of —-
19 THE COMMISSIONER: No.
20 MR. HOAR: Not the accounts.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: I think, Mr. Penny, that the primary source of
22 the constitution and the statement of its financial affairs,
23 the primary source for that must be the company itself — in
24 this case, the political party itself.
25 MR. PENNY: Shall I read you what the Electoral Commission
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 published about this?
3 THE COMMISSIONER: I am simply going on Schedule 4 to the 2000
4 Act. If these documents exist, they should be in the
5 possession of the political party. If they are in the
6 possession of the political party, there is no reason why the
7 gentleman who has been mentioned should not produce them here
8 at 10 o’clock on Monday morning.
9 MR. PENNY: I am sure that is right. But you might, actually,
10 like to read what is actually published by the body that is
11 responsible for the regulation of this — because I do not
12 know that anybody has in this courtroom.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: At the end of the day, I go on the Statute
14 rather than on what the Electoral Commission publish.
15 MR. PENNY: You are a High Court judge, or you are a Deputy
16 High Court judge. But there we are.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: So, my source is the Statute.
18 MR. PENNY: Yes, of course.
19 MR. HOAR: My Lord, I still have a concern, which is this. It is
20 all very well to say that were it to be presented on Monday
21 and to be forged, that would be a great point for us. It is
22 actually a point which I follow entirely. However, how on
23 earth are we going to find out? Are we sending it to
24 Mr. Radley for a documentary analysis?
25 THE COMMISSIONER: No. Simply, at the moment, it is going to be
ERLAM & OTHERS v RAHMAN & WILLIAMS 20 FEBRUARY 2015 PROCEEDINGS DAY 14
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 produced in court by somebody at 10 o’clock on Monday morning.
3 If the documents do exist, we can look at them, and if they do
4 not exist, then somebody at some stage will probably provide
5 an explanation for us.
6 MR. HOAR: We can look at the documents that purport to be the
7 documents referred to.
8 THE COMMISSIONER: Whatever documents are produced, we will look
9 at; and if none are produced, we will not.
10 MR. PENNY: Can I just raise a matter —-
11 MR. HOAR: Just to be absolutely clear, it is not a wild
12 allegation.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Hoar, Mr. Penny has an application.
14 MR. PENNY: These proceedings need to be taken control of, because
15 what is going on at the moment is, in public, in very high
16 profile proceedings, the most ridiculous conduct I have ever
17 seen in a courtroom in 22 years on behalf of a member of the
18 Bar; and it is happening in a case where, as you know, the
19 oxygen of publicity will be feeding this on to the wires.
20 Your Lordship, as well as having the obligation of making the
21 fact-sensitive decision in this case, as you do, has a
22 responsibility to the public to ensure that conduct which is
23 appropriate to proceedings of this nature is observed; and
24 that, in my submission, is not happening at the moment.
25 MR. HOAR: I do not accept any of that, my Lord. I suggest that
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 my learned friend withdraw that comment.
3 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Hoar, at the moment, I work on the
4 principle that if you ask a question that is improper, I shall
5 stop you. If Mr. Penny objects to a question, and he is
6 right, I shall stop you. But you conduct your
7 cross-examination, as Mr. Penny conducted his, as you consider
8 fit.
9 MR. HOAR: I note that there will —-
10 THE COMMISSIONER: It is right to say that the issues that have
11 been ventilated in cross-examination, namely, the structure of
12 Tower Hamlets First, that issue does appear to me to be
13 relevant to an issue raised in the petition, namely, the issue
14 — which is clearly on the petition and is argued both ways by
15 both sides — as to whether and to what extent the party is or
16 is not, as it were, an emanation of the Mayor.
17 MR. HOAR: Indeed.
18 THE COMMISSIONER: That is an issue in the case. Mr. Penny has
19 addressed it from one side, you are addressing it from the
20 other. But it seems to me that that is something that may
21 legitimately be explored in cross-examination of Mr. —-
22 MR. HOAR: May I say —-
23 MR. PENNY: Your Lordship will have noted that I did not
24 suggest —-
25 MR. HOAR: May I say, before my learned friend —-
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1 LUTFUR RAHMAN – HOAR
2 MR. PENNY: —- I did not suggest otherwise. I am talking about
3 the nature of the proceedings. I am not talking about the
4 content of the questions; and nor am I talking about the
5 content of the questions that your Lordship has asked. I am
6 talking about the nature of these proceedings and the conduct
7 that is going on.
8 MR. HOAR: My Lord, if my learned friend had objections, perhaps
9 he should have put them. I do submit that is — in any event,
10 there we are.
11 THE COMMISSIONER: More questions, fewer comments, Mr. Hoar,
12 I think is the —-
13 MR. HOAR: Well, Mr. Rahman cannot cope with that.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: Well, that is a comment that should not have
15 been made, Mr. Hoar.
16 MR. PENNY: QED.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Hoar, do not engage in the aside. Not
18 simply does it annoy Mr. Penny, but it also does not help me.
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By Peter Golds
Trial by Jeory 