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Transcript

Lehrmann judge’s appeal against ‘corrupt’ finding · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, July twenty two, twenty twenty five. Cheaper doctors'
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  Speaker 1: visits helped get Anthony Albanezi re elected, but his own
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  Speaker 1: Health Department says nearly a quarter of gps are unlikely
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  Speaker 1: to take up the bulk billing incentive. That story, plus
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  Speaker 1: all our coverage of what's shaping up as a rip
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  Speaker 1: roaring return to Federal Parliament, is live now at the
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  Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au. The fallout from the Bruce
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  Speaker 1: Lamon Brittany Higgins matter just keeps on coming. Now. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of Australia's most famous former judges fighting for his
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  Speaker 1: reputation and his professional life today Walter Sofronoff's Federal court
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  Speaker 1: appeal against corruption findings. It's one of those criminal cases
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  Speaker 1: Australians have been able to forget.
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  Speaker 2: The hunt for Allison baden Clay has intensified, with police
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  Speaker 2: now searching industrial garbage bins for evidence.
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  Speaker 1: The twenty twelve disappearance of Brisbane mother Allison baden Clay,
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  Speaker 1: an executive, a devoted mum of three little girls. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you Police emergency what's your location?
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  Speaker 3: Good morning Brookfield.
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  Speaker 1: One Friday morning, her husband Jared rang Triple O to
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  Speaker 1: say he was worried and what's happening there.
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  Speaker 4: I don't want to be alarmist and I tried to
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  Speaker 4: one three one number, but just went on forever. YEA
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  Speaker 4: my wife at the time.
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  Speaker 5: I don't know where she is.
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  Speaker 1: He spoke to the journalists who'd flocked to his front yard.
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  Speaker 4: I'm trying to look after my children at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: They've got three young girls and.
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  Speaker 4: We really trust that the police are doing everything they
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  Speaker 4: can to find my wife and hope that she'll come home.
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  Speaker 1: So you can guess what came next. A body has
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  Speaker 1: been found in the search for missing Brisbane woman Alison
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  Speaker 1: baden Clay. An Jared baden Clay was charged with murder
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  Speaker 1: and convicted after the jury was told he had fingernail
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  Speaker 1: scratches on his face and shown evidence he was having
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  Speaker 1: an affair, But Jared baden Clay successfully appealed to the
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  Speaker 1: Queensland Court of Appeal. It downgraded his conviction from murder
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  Speaker 1: to manslaughter, excepting it was possible Allison died accidentally during
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  Speaker 1: a violent fight with her husband. It was a crisis
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  Speaker 1: for the justice system a guilty man led off the hook.
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  Speaker 1: Alison baden Clay's family and friends have asked supporters to
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  Speaker 1: join them in showing their anger and sadness over the decision.
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  Speaker 1: Then an eminent lawyer put his hand up to take
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  Speaker 1: the case to the High Court, Walter Sofronoff KC, whose
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  Speaker 1: career had ranged across the criminal defense bar and a
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  Speaker 1: stint as Queensland's Solicitor General. He was famous in media
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  Speaker 1: circles for being a lawyer who was happy to talk
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  Speaker 1: to journo's and believed the press had a strong role
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  Speaker 1: to play in open justice. Full disclosure here. Like many
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  Speaker 1: journalists I've dealt with Sofronov over the years, Sofronov was
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  Speaker 1: successful in the baden Clay case. He convinced the justices
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  Speaker 1: of the High Court to restore Jared baiden Clay's conviction
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  Speaker 1: for brutally murdering his wife. He charged Queensland taxpayers a
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  Speaker 1: nominal fee a few hundred dollars instead of the tens
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  Speaker 1: of thousands a senior silk like him could have got
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  Speaker 1: for running such a case. His Sofronov talking to the
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  Speaker 1: Rule of Law Center, a nonprofit about that case why
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  Speaker 1: would he lie.
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  Speaker 3: He would only lie if he was awake at one
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  Speaker 3: point thirty when that phone was charged. Therefore he did
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  Speaker 3: not go to bed at nine. Therefore he did not
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  Speaker 3: leave her there and not know what happened to her.
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  Speaker 3: Therefore he knows what happened to her. Therefore he got
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  Speaker 3: rid of the body. And if he got rid of
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  Speaker 3: the body, then he killed her.
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  Speaker 1: That sent Sofronov into the legal stratosphere. He became President
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  Speaker 1: of the Queensland Court of Appeal and later became a
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  Speaker 1: judge of choice for Royal Commission type work, including the
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  Speaker 1: inquiry into the Grantham floods and into Queensland's disastrous DNA laboratory.
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  Speaker 3: I was astounded at what I found. We found some
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  Speaker 3: very very disturbing and troubling things that were happening in
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  Speaker 3: the DNA laboratory.
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  Speaker 1: Then came the legal drama that has sprawled across state
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  Speaker 1: and territory boundaries and jurisdictions, from criminal to civil law,
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  Speaker 1: sexual assault to defamation and beyond. It's Brittany Higgins and
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  Speaker 1: Bruce Lahmon, the young political staffers who's encounter one night
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  Speaker 1: in twenty nine teen at Federal Parliament in Canberra resulted
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  Speaker 1: in Laman being found by the Federal Court to have,
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  Speaker 1: on the balance of probabilities, sexually assaulted Higgins. Before that,
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  Speaker 1: there'd been a criminal trial where Laman, who's always pleaded
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  Speaker 1: not guilty, had been charged and tried for rape but
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  Speaker 1: not convicted after a jury was discharged thanks to what
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  Speaker 1: the presiding judge in the Act Supreme Court said was
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  Speaker 1: misconduct by one jury member. Lahman was not tried again,
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  Speaker 1: and while that case spiraled off into a defamation proceeding
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  Speaker 1: between Lamen and Network Ten, which Ten ultimately won, the
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  Speaker 1: Act Supreme Court matter took on a life of its own.
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  Speaker 1: The Act government commissioned guess who Walter Sofronoff to inquire
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  Speaker 1: into the charging and prosecution of Laman. In twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: Sofronoff found that the Act's Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold,
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  Speaker 1: had misled the court and failed to live up to
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  Speaker 1: his obligations to disclose material to Lahman's lawyers. Drumgold, who
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  Speaker 1: had retired as DPP, vehemently denied all this and successfully
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  Speaker 1: challenged the Sofronov report, accusing the commissioner of bias against him.
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  Speaker 1: The Act Supreme Court found Sofronov had communicated during the
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  Speaker 1: hearings with journalists, including The Australian's own Janet al Bresen,
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  Speaker 1: and given them advance copies of his findings. The court
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  Speaker 1: said this gave rise to an apprehension Sofronov's findings against
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  Speaker 1: Drum Gold might have been biased. Here's what Janet al
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  Speaker 1: Bresen has written about that. We've used a voice actor.
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  Speaker 2: Unlike many other media outlets. I put many questions to
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  Speaker 2: Sofronov before and during the inquiry to fully understand the
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  Speaker 2: issues so we could fully explain serious issues about our
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  Speaker 2: criminal justice system to readers. If I ask more questions
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  Speaker 2: than other journalists, I make no apologies for that.
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  Speaker 1: Later, the Act Integrity Commission found was A Sofronoff, the
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  Speaker 1: former hero of the Bar the Rockstar Commissioner, had engaged
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  Speaker 1: in serious corrupt conduct. Now Walter Sofronov is fighting back
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  Speaker 1: in a Federal court action against the Act Integrity Commission's report.
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  Speaker 1: It's been a long road to court, including an unsuccessful
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  Speaker 1: attempt by the Act Government to have the case thrown
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  Speaker 1: out on the grounds the report was protected by parliamentary privilege.
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  Speaker 1: On Monday, the Federal Court heard a barrister for Sofronov,
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  Speaker 1: Adam Pomeranki KC argue that the Commission had no basis
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  Speaker 1: for finding Sofronov's conduct to be corrupt at all. He
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  Speaker 1: is a voice actor. Reading Pomeranki's words.
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  Speaker 4: The finding of serious corrupt conduct is affected by a
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  Speaker 4: jurisdictional error and therefore cannot stand.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up why Walter Sofronov says the Act Integrity Commission
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  Speaker 1: got it wrong. In court on Monday was the Sofronov's
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  Speaker 1: lawyer argued the Integrity Commission made mistakes. Pomeranki said the
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  Speaker 1: watchdog misunderstood the definition of corruption.
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  Speaker 4: Each individual error that we're able to prove is bound
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  Speaker 4: up in the rolled up conclusions of serious corrupt conduct
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  Speaker 4: and cannot be disentangled.
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  Speaker 1: And Pomeranki said the Integrity Commission was also wrong about
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  Speaker 1: the legal definition of integrity.
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  Speaker 4: It seriously dilutes and distorted the very notion of corruption.
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  Speaker 4: The Integrity Commission, on its proper construction, doesn't permit this
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  Speaker 4: basic misuse of language.
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  Speaker 1: Tomarenki said the suggestion in the Operation Juno report from
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  Speaker 1: the Commission that Sofronov had become a fellow traveler of
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  Speaker 1: Jared Albregsen was a stretch.
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  Speaker 4: None of this looks remotely like the ordinary conception of corruption.
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  Speaker 4: Acting Justice Ka made no sugestion at all of actual bias.
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  Speaker 4: Fallow Traveler is a meaningless slogan. What is it supposed
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  Speaker 4: to mean? Even if mister Sofronov was wrong in his view,
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  Speaker 4: the fact remains that he genuinely and honestly held it.
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  Speaker 4: This is not a corrupt, dishonest or malicious motive. At worst,
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  Speaker 4: it could be characterized as an erroneous attempt to ensure
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  Speaker 4: accuracy and transparency in public discourse.
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  Speaker 1: THEICT Integrity Commission is represented by Scott Robertson. Sc You
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  Speaker 1: might remember him as the barrister who questioned former New
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  Speaker 1: South Wales Premier Gladyspireagiclian before New South Wales Eykak when
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  Speaker 1: she was accused of serious corrupt conduct. On Monday, Robertson
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  Speaker 1: told the court Walter Sofernoff's submissions don't actually address the
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  Speaker 1: conduct the ACT Integrity Commission found to be corrupt. Robertson
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  Speaker 1: said giving out information during the proceedings constituted at least misbehavior,
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  Speaker 1: and said giving out the final report could.
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  Speaker 5: Not, on any reasonable view, be regarded as lawful and
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  Speaker 5: no error has been demonstrated in the Commission's finding.
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  Speaker 1: To the contrary, Robertson said the Commission had acted within
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  Speaker 1: its remit.
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  Speaker 5: Part of the purpose of an inquiry under this Act
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  Speaker 5: involves disclosing to the public matters of public concern, and
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  Speaker 5: so that might justify some of the communications with journalists
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  Speaker 5: during the course of the inquiry being on foot. What
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  Speaker 5: it doesn't justify in our submissions is the particular engagement
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  Speaker 5: referred to as the disclosure of the confidential matter.
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  Speaker 1: The Federal Court hearing continues on Tuesday. For all the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: latest visit the Australian dot com au