by Ganesh Sahathevan
News.com.au and others have reported:
A top Sydney barrister has got into a legal battle of his own over the “offensive” number plate on his bright yellow Lamborghini, which reads: “LGOPNR”.
Peter Lavac said most people would never connect the dots and realise his number plate was cheekily saying “leg opener”.
But at least one person did, in fact, connect those dots, and soon Transport NSW was calling for his plates to be removed.
“Tough s***,” Mr Lavac unapologetically told The Sunday Telegraph.
Transport NSW gave him 18 days to change his number plate, writing in a letter: “Transport for NSW determined that these number plates could be considered offensive and must be returned.”
From Palm Beach in Sydney’s northern beaches, Mr Lavac fought for his right to keep the number plate and challenged the letter in his local court on September 1.He argued it was a free speech issue.
Suffice to say that this writer is giving the story above serious consideration in his quest to educate himself as to what makes a person fit and proper for admission to practise law in NSW and Australia. Readers may recall he has been found by the NSW LPAB , and the College Of Law (exercising Rule 19 Certificate rights) to have offended community standards by questioning them (as student and journalist) about poor PLT course content and delivery.
He is also wondering if the Chief Justice Tom Bathurst and his officers at the NSW LPAB would tolerate the above sort of " cheekiness" from an any non-white lawyer.
TO BE READ WITH
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
No equality before the Australian Bench and at the Australian Bar until Asian lawyers can behave as badly as whites
by Ganesh Sahathevan
Beasley SC: one last bite. Tempting to think that Asian lawyers also can indulge in this type of witticism, but it will probably be career ending.
Readers may recall that this writer has been found not fit and proper for admission to practise at the Supreme Court Of NSW, and subsequently all other Australian jurisdictions.
The decision of the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board chaired the Chief Justice Of NSW, Tom Bathurst, is based on findings that include this writer's part in an international conspiracy which involved corrupting journalists at the ABC 4 Corners programme (see story below).
The findings included a significant amount of evidence about this writer's tendency to angry, threatening and intimidating behaviour. That evidence included complaints about the College Of Law (which are now being investigated in Malaysia) and of this writer's work as a journalist.
Faced with the findings of such an eminent body as the NSW LPAB and the Chief Justice a thorough examination of conduct and conscience has been embarked upon, which has naturally included looking to one's betters for examples of proper behaviour.
Research had led to the following examples:
From Richard Beasely SC, as quoted by Justinian:
The violence described in the SMH story frightens even this writer despite his close to 40 years experience in the martial arts, a 5th Dan Black Belt in taekwondo,and ongoing training in full contact combat sports.
It does appear as if the Australian Bar and Bench, while outwardly de-crying the lack of "diversity", expect Asians and other non-whites to conduct themselves like house servants or plantation slaves, always obedient and circumspect, and never ever like their white masters.
END
Beasley SC: one last bite. Tempting to think that Asian lawyers also can indulge in this type of witticism, but it will probably be career ending.Readers may recall that this writer has been found not fit and proper for admission to practise at the Supreme Court Of NSW, and subsequently all other Australian jurisdictions.
The decision of the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board chaired the Chief Justice Of NSW, Tom Bathurst, is based on findings that include this writer's part in an international conspiracy which involved corrupting journalists at the ABC 4 Corners programme (see story below).
The findings included a significant amount of evidence about this writer's tendency to angry, threatening and intimidating behaviour. That evidence included complaints about the College Of Law (which are now being investigated in Malaysia) and of this writer's work as a journalist.
Faced with the findings of such an eminent body as the NSW LPAB and the Chief Justice a thorough examination of conduct and conscience has been embarked upon, which has naturally included looking to one's betters for examples of proper behaviour.
Research had led to the following examples:
From Richard Beasely SC, as quoted by Justinian:
Then, the lawyers named in this story from the SMH dated 15 September 2018, headlined "Police investigate following top legal eagles' swanky party" .Barnaby Joyce's testicles.
The violence described in the SMH story frightens even this writer despite his close to 40 years experience in the martial arts, a 5th Dan Black Belt in taekwondo,and ongoing training in full contact combat sports.
It does appear as if the Australian Bar and Bench, while outwardly de-crying the lack of "diversity", expect Asians and other non-whites to conduct themselves like house servants or plantation slaves, always obedient and circumspect, and never ever like their white masters.
END
Business
Bizarre claims used to deny lawyer certificate
BEN BUTLER, EXCLUSIVE
812 words
17 January 2019
AUSTLN
Australian
14
English
© 2019 News Limited. All rights reserved.
The body overseen by Chief Justice Tom Bathurst responsible for deciding who can practise law in NSW relied on a wildly defamatory Malaysian blog depicting ABC journalists, former British prime minister Tony Blair, financier George Soros and others as part of a global conspiracy when deciding to deny a would-be solicitor a certificate to practise.
Chief Justice Bathurst and Legal Practitioner Admission Board executive officer Louise Pritchard declined to answer The Australian’s questions about how the article came into the board’s hands and why its members felt the conspiracy-laden material could be relied upon as part of a decision to deny Sydney man Ganesh Sahathevan admission as a lawyer. Nor would either say which of the 10 members of the LPAB, three of whom are serving NSW Supreme Court judges, was on the deciding panel.
Ms Pritchard has left her role at the LPAB since The Australian began making inquiries in September. The article, published in December 2017 on website The Third Force, accuses Mr Sahathevan of engaging in a conspiracy to attack then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.
Mahathir Mohamad, who returned as prime minister after toppling Mr Najib in elections held last May, is also smeared as a participant in the globe-spanning conspiracy.
Mr Najib was under pressure at the time over the country’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB, which the US Department of Justice says has been looted of billions of dollars that was spent on property, art, jewels and the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Wolf of Wall Street.
Malaysian authorities have charged Mr Najib with dozens of corruption offences that could attract decades in jail over his role in the 1MDB scandal, which allegedly included the flow of about $US1 billion through his personal bank account.
The article’s author, Malaysian political operative and Najib loyalist Raggie Jessy, also accused Rewcastle-Brown, Stein and Besser of receiving money, totalling millions of dollars, to participate in a Four Corners program exposing the 1MDB scandal that aired on the ABC in March 2016.
There is no suggestion any of Mr Jessy’s bizarre allegations are true. However, the LPAB cited the piece when denying Mr Sahathevan admission as a lawyer in an undated and unsigned set of reasons sent to him on August 3 last year.
It used the article as evidence in a passage dealing with legal conflicts between Mr Sahathevan, who has largely worked in the past as a journalist, his former employer, Malaysia’s Sun Media Group, and the company’s owner, tycoon Vincent Tan.
In that context, the board said the Third Force article reported “that Mr Sahathevan was investigated for blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation”. While the article claims that blackmail, extortion, bribery and defamation “are but some of the transgressions many from around the world attribute” to Mr Sahathevan, The Australian was unable to find any reference in it to an investigation into him on these grounds.
It is unclear why the board felt the need to rely on the article, as it also made adverse findings about Mr Sahathevan’s character based on a series of other allegations including that he used “threatening and intimidating” language in emails to the College of Law and the NSW Attorney General and did not disclose his sacking from a previous job to the board.
Mr Sahathevan has denied the allegations in correspondence with the board. The board also cited evidence that one of Mr Sahathevan’s blogs on Malaysian politics was banned by the Najib regime as indicating his poor character.
In an email to Chief Justice Bathurst, sent on August 30, Rewcastle-Brown said her site, Sarawak Report, which exposed much of the 1MDB scandal, was banned by the Malaysian government.
“I along with other critics of the 1MDB scandal (which includes Mr Sahathevan) became the target of immense state-backed vilification, intimidation and online defamation campaigns on behalf of the Malaysian government,” she said.
She said the board’s use of the Third Force article against Mr Sahathevan displayed “a troubling level of misjudgment and poor quality research, giving a strong impression that someone seeking to find reasons to disqualify this candidate simply went through the internet looking for ‘dirt’ against him”.
“The Third Force has consistently been by far the most outlandish, libellous, vicious and frankly ludicrous of all the publications that were commissioned as part of former prime minister Najib Razak’s self-proclaimed ‘cyber army’ which he paid (and continues to pay) to defame his perceived enemies and critics,” she said.
Besser, who now works in the ABC’s London bureau, told The Australian: “It’s clearly nonsense and comes from the darkest corners of some pretty wild Malaysian conspiracy theorists.”Mr Sahathevan’s application is to be reconsidered at an LPAB meeting next month.
News Ltd.
Document AUSTLN0020190116ef1h0003
