Lawyers Weekly reports..
An order has been made to strike out the name of the lawyer who counselled fathers of female genital mutilation victims to lie to police, an offence that the Court of Appeal said “strikes at the heart of our system of justice”.
Content warning: This lawyer was involved in a female genital mutilation investigation. While details are kept to a minimum, we strongly advise caution.
Between August and October 2012, police lawfully intercepted calls from solicitor Hussein Karimjee who was advising fathers of female genital mutilation victims to “maintain their story” to police and lie in official statements. An order has now been made to remove his name from the roll of Australian practitioners.
“By engaging in the offending conduct, Mr Karimjee deliberately placed his personal desire to assist members of the community in misleading the police above his professional obligations to the court and to the administration of justice,” the judgement read, adding he was “probably permanently unfit to practise”.
Mr Karimjee was arrested and charged in 2013 with two counts of “do act with the intent to pervert the course of justice”. He pleaded guilty to one charge in May 2017 and was eventually convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
After he pleaded guilty, Mr Karimjee informed the Law Society of NSW council that he would not be renewing his practising certificate and agreed to surrender his then-current one. He also volunteered to assist with the process of having his name removed from the role and requested only that the Court of Appeal change the language in his removal from “permanently” unfit to practise to “indefinitely”.
