The London mayor has been granted a stay of execution on the decision to suspend him from his job.

The High Court decided on the stay on Tuesday, pending a full hearing into the one-month suspension imposed by the independent adjudication panel.

Earlier Ken Livingstone mounted another attack on his media critics as he vowed to continue fighting against the decision.

Livingstone used a press conference to slam the decision. He said that if he lost his court case he would pursue the matter to the Court of Appeal because the panel's power "needed to be tested".

The mayor pointed out that the code he was found to have breached is to be amended by the government so that it is "restricted only to matters which would be regarded as unlawful".

"I wonder why, therefore, the Standards Board continued the case against me when they, and the government, agreed to change the rules so that such a case could never be brought again," he added.

Livingstone told journalists that the decision to suspend him was undemocratic and was contrary to the wishes of Londoners who had elected him.

He also poured scorn on Associated Newspapers, owners of the Evening Standard whose reporter was involved in the incident that led to the case.

Livingstone blamed a "25-year vendetta" against him run by the Evening Standard's parent company.

He again pointed to the Daily Mail's support for the Blackshirts in the 1930s and reiterated his own record in tackling prejudice.

The mayor's lawyers lodged papers seeking leave for judicial review against the adjudication panel's decision, which last Friday said he had brought his office into disrepute for comparing a Jewish reporter with a Nazi concentration camp guard.

If Livingstone fails, deputy mayor Nicky Gavron will take over for the duration of the suspension, which was due to begin on March 1 but could yet come into force later.