EJP | News | UK | Court annuls London mayor's suspension over 'Nazi' jibe

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Court annuls London mayor's suspension over 'Nazi' jibe

Updated: 06/Oct/2006 15:58

London Mayor Ken Livingstonearrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, 04 October 2006.Livingstone is launching a legal challenge Wednesday against an order suspending himfrom office for making a Nazi jibe to a Jewish reporter. A committee of the Adjudication Panel for England unanimously found Livingstone guilty ofbeing "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive" in comparing Jewish newspaper reporter Oliver Finegold to a Nazi concentration camp guard.The paneldecided in February

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LONDON (AFP)--- A judge on Thursday quashed a four-week suspension slapped on London Mayor Ken Livingstone for comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard, officials said.

High Court judge Lawrence Collins overturned the suspension regardless of ongoing deliberations on whether the remark, to a reporter from London's Evening Standard, breached the Greater London Authority's code of conduct.

"I have made it clear the suspension will be quashed," he said.

Livingstone originally made the comments in February 2005, but later claimed they were fueled by his dislike of Associated Newspapers, which owns the Evening Standard, and its sister national paper the Daily Mail.

During the two-day hearing, Livingstone's lawyers argued that the ruling suspending him was flawed for a number of reasons, including that he was not acting in his official capacity at the time.

The incident occurred when Livingstone was attending a reception to mark 20 years since former culture secretary Chris Smith became Britain's first openly-gay member of Parliament.

An Evening Standard newspaper reporter, Oliver Finegold, and a photographer were loitering outside the event, attempting to interview guests as they left the function.

On being repeatedly asked a question after indicating that he did not wish to be interviewed, Livingstone asked Finegold, who was accompanied by a photographer, whether he had ever been a "German war criminal".

On hearing that Finegold was Jewish, the mayor likened him to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

‘Insensitive and offensive’ remarks

An administrative tribunal ruled in February that Livingstone's remarks were "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive" and ordered his suspension from office for four weeks.

But only a week later a judge at the High Court order the suspension to be delayed pending Livingstone's appeal, which included the argument that his comments were motivated by his dislike of the Evening Standards and its owners.

During World War II, the group's then proprietor, Lord Rothermere, met Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and expressed admiration for Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Livingstone, nicknamed "Red Ken" for his socialist views, was re-elected mayor of western Europe's most populous city in June 2004 under the banner of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party.