High Court imposes extended civil restraint order on struck-off solicitor Sheikh Asif Salam in 2025
A former immigration solicitor struck off for advising an undercover BBC reporter on how to make a fraudulent visa application has been placed under a three-year extended civil restraint order after repeatedly challenging his ban.
Sheikh Asif Salam, once a sole practitioner at Salam & Co Solicitors in Cheshire, was recorded giving covert advice to an undercover journalist on obtaining false accountancy evidence for a spousal visa application. The recordings were later broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s File on Four, leading to a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) hearing that resulted in his strike-off in 2023.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) brought two applications before Ms Justice Obi at the Royal Courts of Justice, seeking to strike out Mr Salam’s latest claim as an abuse of process and to impose an extended civil restraint order.
Benjamin Tankel, representing the SRA, told the court that Mr Salam had made eight previous applications deemed “totally without merit” in relation to the same disciplinary proceedings. “The SRA will be inviting my lady to find this is the ninth,” he said.
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Mr Tankel added that the “sheer number of applications” brought by Mr Salam was disproportionate to the complexity of the original case. Between June 2017 and December 2018, Salam lodged 59 judicial review applications, of which 18 were found to be totally without merit.
He told the court that Mr Salam’s latest submissions continued to reject the SDT’s findings and maintained allegations of injustice despite multiple rulings to the contrary. “He continues to maintain he is the victim of a gross injustice and that every single one of the applications he has made, no matter how many times they have been rejected, was justified,” Mr Tankel said.
The barrister noted that earlier High Court judges had already warned that a civil restraint order might be necessary to curb further vexatious filings. “That time has now come,” he told the court. He added that in the weeks leading up to the hearing, Salam had resumed writing letters to solicitors involved in the disciplinary proceedings — correspondence which appeared to be “preparatory work for further claims.”
Representing himself, Mr Salam defended his conduct, saying: “I have practised for 45 years and had an unblemished career except for this thing. I am not guilty. This is a problem… I am the one that has been the victim. My life has been destroyed these last eight years.”
He told the court his repeated legal challenges were not vexatious but an attempt to restore his reputation. “I am just trying to clear my name. I am just trying to get my honour back,” he said.
After considering the arguments, Ms Justice Obi struck out Mr Salam’s claim, describing it as “abusive, totally without merit and an abuse of process.”
In her ruling, the judge said Mr Salam “does not accept the findings of the SDT [and] does not accept the decision of the court.” She found no evidence of fraud by the SRA, describing Salam’s claim as “factually misconceived.”
Turning to the extended civil restraint order, the judge said the court was “satisfied” that Mr Salam’s conduct was vexatious, citing his “sustained refusal to accept findings” and his continued challenges to their legitimacy through repetitive claims.
“He has returned to the same issues notwithstanding clear judicial findings rejecting them,” the judge said. “Those warnings have been disregarded. In those circumstances, I am satisfied the threshold for an extended civil restraint order has clearly been met.”
Ms Justice Obi noted that, viewed in the round, Mr Salam’s litigation history demonstrated “a profound sense of grievance and an inability to accept defeat.”
The order, which will last three years, prohibits Mr Salam from bringing further court proceedings related to the disciplinary case without prior judicial permission. The court also ordered him to pay £24,000 in costs to the SRA.