Benjamin Tankel and Mark Rogers - SRA's Judicial Prostitutes

These two lawyers are the figurative, not literal, judicial rent boys for their client, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Pay them the going rate and they perform their 'tricks' in the High Court just like any male prostitute would do when servicing their client's particular tastes. The pimps at the SRA in Birmingham instruct these two legal harlots in their chosen speciality - the very popular but perverted fetish of Islamophobia, masquerading as regulatory work, when attacking with unrestrained relish retired Solicitor Farid El Diwany: the heroic whistle-blower on Norwegian Islamophobic abuse up to the advent of mass-murder by rabid Norwegian Muslim-hater, Anders Behring Breivik.

Benjamin Tankel's most noteworthy refrain (blowjob in legal-speak) in Court 2 at the Royal Courts of Justice on 18 October 2022 before Mr Justice Murray is typical of the Islamophobia industry: "Every time the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal say something that Farid El Diwany disagrees with, he calls them Islamophobic", related Mr Tankel. Making Mr El Diwany appear like an ignorant subversive agitator instead of the Norwegian abuse victim he in fact is. Benjamin Tankel is a 39 Essex Chambers embarrassment who betrays his calling; a dishonourable Jew: a Pharisee. Along with his instructing Solicitor Mark Rogers - the 'Wanker of the Week'.

The Gazette has long pointed out that the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s insistence that lawyers meet high standards of transparency is not necessarily met by its own actions.

The public and press continue to be excluded from SRA board meetings, on the questionable assertion that solicitors would be no better informed about the decision-making process from seeing it in action.

Another aspect of the SRA’s methods is also shrouded in mystery – the process by which decisions are made about whether to prosecute solicitors for misconduct, and when a reprimand or low-level fine will suffice rather than bothering the tribunal with such matters.

The SRA’s website explains that it employs one chief adjudicator, four full-time permanent adjudicators and 13 external panel adjudicators – six lay and seven legally qualified.

Obiter decided to ask through a freedom of information request what credentials these individuals possessed and how long they had been qualified. After all, these people are making career-defining decisions about solicitors and one would hope they bring a little experience to such a task.

Alas, the SRA could not provide the answers. Given the low number of adjudicators, the regulator said, giving details about their qualifications would lead to them being identifiable from the information requested (Obiter might suggest in passing that we should know their identities, but that point would presumably fall on deaf ears).

More to the point, the SRA replied, it does not hold an exhaustive list of employees’ qualifications in a way that could be made readily available. Even if they were minded to tell us, they don’t have the info to hand.

All of which might prompt law firm compliance officers to give a wry smile. After all, according to the SRA’s own transparency rules, authorised firms ‘are required to provide on their website the experience and qualifications of anyone carrying out the work, and of their supervisors’.