A Sydney lawyer who made nine unsuccessful applications to renew his practising certificate has failed in his bid to be declared a fit and proper person by the New South Wales Supreme Court.
The practitioner sought to set aside the New South Wales Law Society’s decision of 23 July 2025, the most recent decision from all the applications made since 2020.
The society’s ruling followed the cancellation of his registration by the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA) in 2017, after it investigated “concerns of potentially duplicated and template-based protection claims”.
An appeal of that decision to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) in 2020 was unsuccessful.
In his 17-page judgment delivered last week, Acting Justice Michael Elkaim dismissed the summons, saying the practitioner refused to accept his wrongdoing and lacked insight into his conduct.
The practitioner, who ran a Parramatta firm, became a solicitor in Sri Lanka in 1996. He was admitted in NSW in 2004, and registered with MARA in 2010.
In his summons, he submitted that the court should examine the MARA and AAT findings and conclude they were unreliable.
The society’s reliance on those decisions to refuse to grant him a practising certificate must also be erroneous, he argued.
Acting Justice Elkaim said the decision under review was the society’s refusal to grant a PC, not the decision by MARA or by the AAT.
“I am satisfied that the AAT decision (which affirmed the MARA decision) must be regarded as final and unimpeachable,” he said.
“Ultimately the plaintiff’s refusal to accept the findings of the MARA and AAT decisions is at the core of the defendant’s case and, in turn, determines the outcome of the summons.”
The society submitted that the practitioner’s persistent rejection of the MARA and AAT findings was the “glaring hole” in his pursuit of a practising certificate.
In short, his lack of insight into the reasons for his rejection “was simply too fundamental to overcome”, it submitted.
Acting Justice Elkaim referred to examples from the hearing of the practitioner’s insistence that he had not erred, saying the practitioner also “maintained his stance in submissions, never taking a backward step in his denials of wrongdoing”.
He said the practitioner was so confident about the wrongness of the decisions that he simply repeated his submissions with each application.
The society had connected the practitioner with an expert in regulatory matters, who advised him he needed to address reasons, remorse, restitution and recovery.
The practitioner ignored the advice.
“The plaintiff is clearly not interested in remorse because he believes there is nothing to be sorry about,” Acting Justice Elkaim said.
“As to the related topic of rehabilitation, the plaintiff said he had undertaken further studies, a Masters’ degree, and written a book entitling him to a PhD from the University of Selinus (which required little more than payment of between 2,000 and 3,000 Euros), but he added … ‘There’s nothing else to rehabilitate because I haven’t done anything wrong’.”
The practitioner asserted that he had “served” a five-year ban issued by MARA.
Acting Justice Elkaim said by continuing his denial of wrongdoing, the practitioner was perpetuating the finding that he was not a fit and proper person.
“The relevant question is not whether the plaintiff has ‘done his time’, but whether he has demonstrated the character and competence required to discharge the duties owed by legal practitioners to the court and their clients,” he said.
“Other than in respect of the MARA and AAT findings, the plaintiff is a person of apparent good character. He made mistakes in his practice as a migration agent, but he lost his registration for five years. This is a substantial period for a person whose source of income is his occupation.
“So why then should these factors not overcome his mistakes and allow him to be restored to his practice as a solicitor? The answer is because he lacks any insight into his wrongdoing. He refuses to acknowledge that he did wrong and he refuses to respect the decisions that have gone against him.
“There is even a degree of arrogance in his attitude to the extent that he has made no attempt to persuade the defendant of any failings in the above decisions, instead suggesting that prima facie deficiencies (whatever they might be) are enough to found success in his application.”
Acting Justice Elkaim said the practitioner making serious allegations about an opposing solicitor – allegations which were unfounded but from which he would not retreat – was also evidence he was not a fit and proper person.
“In my view, the overwhelming lack of insight displayed by the plaintiff confirms the correctness of the attitude taken by the defendant. The plaintiff has not discharged the onus upon him to establish that he is a fit and proper person,” he said.
The practitioner was also ordered to pay the society’s costs.
Read the case here.
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