Richard Mawrey, KC is a barrister and Deputy High Court Judge in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. He is a bencher of

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

and a member of Henderson Chambers. In his role as a judge in

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

cases, he has repeatedly criticised the

postal voting Postal voting is voting in an election where ballot papers are distributed to electors (and typically returned) by Mail, post, in contrast to electors voting in person at a polling place, polling station or electronically via an electronic voti ...

system in the United Kingdom. Mawrey came to public notice in 2005 as the Commissioner presiding over the

Election court In United Kingdom election law, election court is a special court convened to hear a petition against the result of a local government or parliamentary election. The court is created to hear the individual case, and ceases to exist when it has m ...

which ruled that the 2004 elections in two

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom (e ...

wards,

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, England. Located immediately to the north-east of Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a ward within the metropolitan authority. It is approximately 1.5 miles from Birmingham City Centre. History Aston wa ...

and

Bordesley Green Bordesley Green is an inner-city area of Birmingham, England about two miles east of the city centre. It also contains a road of the same name. It is in the Bordesley Green Ward which also covers some of Small Heath. Heartlands Hospital is lo ...

, had been invalid due to extensive

electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

through the manipulation of postal ballots. He found six

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

councillors personally guilty of

corrupt practices Corrupt practices in English election law includes bribery, treating, undue influence, personation, and aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring personation. English election law Corrupt practices were created in United Kingdom common l ...

, although one was cleared on appeal. He also severely criticised the whole postal vote system, saying, of a Government statement that "the systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working", that "anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a

banana republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring ...

would find this statement surprising." Other recent cases in which Mawrey has sat as Commissioner in election cases include a petition against the result for the Central ward of

Slough Borough Council Slough Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Slough, in Berkshire, England. Slough is a unitary authority, having the powers of a county and district council combined. Berkshire is purely a ceremonial county, with no administ ...

held on 3 May 2007. In that case he said "I have been appalled ... by the ease with which these substantial frauds were committed", and went on to say that "despite the 2006 lectoral AdministrationAct, the opportunities for easy and effective electoral fraud remain substantially as they were on 4th April 2005." Mawrey's most recent Election Petition judgement was in ''

Erlam & Ors v Rahman & Anor ''Erlam and others v Rahman and another'' [2015] EWHC 1215 (QB) is an English election court case challenging the 2014 election of Lutfur Rahman as the Mayor of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. On 23 April 2015, Election Commission ...

'' when he removed from public office, with immediate effect, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets elected mayor Lutfur Rahman and an elected serving councillor Alibor Choudhury. Both men were members of the subsequently de-registered Tower Hamlets First political party. In addition to presiding over legal cases, he has advocated electoral law reform, but his arguments have been criticised by some academics such as Toby James.

References

21st-century English judges British King's Counsel Living people Members of Gray's Inn Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-law-bio-stub