A High Court judge has said he wants to be satisfied that a barrister acting in a challenge to a new board of the company running the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland has the required status to do so.
Mr Justice David Nolan said he was not prepared to hear the case relating to control of the Al Maktoum Foundation CLG, which owns the centre in Clonskeagh, Dublin, until barrister Joseph Sallabi, who says he is in-house counsel for the company, satisfies the court as to his legal standing to bring the case and that he is employed by the foundation company.
The judge adjourned the matter to next week for clarification on his standing from the legal services providers’ watchdog, the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA).
The dispute arose over what Mr Sallabi told the court was the unlawful appointment of new directors to the foundation company.
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Mr Sallabi brought the case on behalf of Meath-based consultant, Dr Abdel Basset Elsayed, who said he has been a director of the foundation company since 2012 but says the purported appointments of four new directors to the board were invalid and did not follow the requirements of the company’s constitution.
The new directors, who are notice parties in the case, dispute the claims and argue Dr Elsayed cannot bring the case as he does not have instructions on behalf of the board.
There are five notice parties: Ahmad Tahlak, Hesham Abdulla Al Quassim, Khalifa Aldaboos, Mohamed Musabeh Dhahi and Zahid Jami, all of Roebuck Road, Clonskeagh.
The court previously heard the mosque and school at the centre have closed and that the matter required an urgent hearing.
The case came before Mr Justice Nolan on Friday when Lyndon MacCann SC, for the notice party directors, said his side did not accept Mr Sallabi’s claim that he had instructions from the company which has its own law firm who have not given him instructions.
Mr Sallabi said their case alleges that there has been fraud in company law in the way in which the only other board member at the time called a meeting, excluding Dr Elsayed, and set up a new board. He said the company was essentially stolen.
Mr Justice Nolan said he was concerned about Mr Sallabi’s legal standing to bring the case as it is disputed that he was in-house counsel, that he was acting on the instructions of Dr Elsayed alone and would only be able to present the case if he had instructions on behalf of the company.
He was concerned about the fact he claimed to be in-house counsel when he had his own business in Dublin and was acting as in-house counsel for another party. He was also concerned that Mr Sallabi said he was paid to act in cash by Dr Elsayed.
Mr Sallabi later in the day provided the judge with material which he said showed he received payments for his work which he lodged in his account as coming from the company.
However, the judge said he wanted to hear from the LSRA next week and if they said they cannot help, then so be it.
He refused Mr Sallabi’s request to join the Attorney General to the case in relation to his standing rather than the LSRA as counsel said the LSRA had told him it does not give legal advice.
The judge said he would not do so because the Attorney General only acts in the public interest and this was a private interest matter.
Mr Sallabi also asked the judge to recuse himself because counsel felt “you did not handle it fairly and you clearly favour the other side”.
The judge gave him liberty to bring a recusal application.
When Mr Sallabi said “full impartiality”, the judge said counsel did not understand the issues before the court and it was not the case the court had made any decision. He added he had to be satisfied as to Mr Sallabi’s legal standing and from what he had seen made him very worried about his standing.
Earlier the judge said while he had been told this case involved fraud he was “not sure which way the fraud runs and I will wait and see”.
He also said he thought Mr Sallabi was “out of your depth” and his client should consider that he needed some help as he was “someone so young in practice”.
