Vote-rigging Tower Hamlets mayor loses his bid to overturn five-year ban from standing in a public office
- 'Banana republic' mayor Lutfur Rahman was slapped down by judges yesterday
- Rahman was caught rigging mayoral election in the East London borough
- He went to the High Court complaining his human rights had been breached
- Lord Justice Lloyd Jones and Mr Justice Supperstone refused application
Lutfur Rahman (pictured) was booted out of office for rigging a mayoral election for the East London borough of Tower Hamlets
'Banana republic' mayor Lutfur Rahman was slapped down by judges yesterday as he tried to overturn a ban on public office.
Rahman was booted out of office for rigging an election, but went to the High Court complaining his human rights had been breached.
He demanded to be allowed to stand for office again, but his bid to grab back power has ended in humiliation.
Lord Justice Lloyd Jones and Mr Justice Supperstone refused his application after a two-day hearing.
It comes two years after Rahman was exposed as a town hall cheat by four ordinary voters who took him to an election court, which found him guilty of fixing the ballot to become mayor of Tower Hamlets in East London.
It fell to those same voters, at their own expense, to defend the electoral judge's ruling as Rahman launched a High Court action to overturn his five-year ban from standing for election.
The four citizens, led by anti-corruption campaigner Andy Erlam, had to again pay out of their own pockets to fight the legal challenge.
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In 2015, they risked financial ruin to bring Rahman to court, where electoral judge Richard Mawrey QC ruled his industrial-scale vote rigging would shame a 'banana republic'.
Rahman and his cronies had forged postal votes, created an army of 'ghost voters' and threatened Muslim voters they would go to hell unless they backed him.
Slapped down: Rahman (right) went to the High Court saying his human rights had been breached - but his bid to be allowed to stand for office again ended in humiliation
The judge said Bangladesh-born Rahman, Britain's first Muslim elected mayor, had shamelessly 'played the race card on every occasion' in a bid to silence the four locals as Islamaphobes.
Last night Mr Erlam said: 'Mr Rahman needs to admit to himself that he did wrong, serve his five year ban from public office and pay our legal costs which in total amount to about £500,000.'
Mr Erlam and his fellow citizens face significant legal fees but in court they were represented for free by barrister Francis Hoar.
During the failed bid to clear his name, Rahman's QC Paul Bowen told the judges his client's human rights had been breached.
He argued that, because police and prosecutors had decided - after the election court ruling - not to bring any criminal charges against Rahman, he should therefore be cleared of the election court's verdict that he was 'personally guilty' of stealing the election.
The judges rejected this logic.
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