If you have looked at the findings of Justice Kaye on the dealings between Walter Sofronoff, KC and Janet Albrechtsen, you may have thought that the latter might keep a low profile about the singular debacle wrought by the two of them in the administration of justice in this country.  It was staggeringly inept.  If you thought that, you were wrong.

The page one report in The Australian today is headed ‘DPP’s reputation remains in tatters.’  The first par. reads:

Shane Drumgold has won a Pyrrhic victory because he has failed to restore his reputation.

The last par. reads:

Each day we are learning more about prosecutorial overreach not just in the ACT, but in other jurisdictions.  If not for the work by many journalists at this newspaper, the Australian public had little idea about deeply troubling issues concerning the criminal justice system.  There is more to do on that front.

Any apology?  Au contraire.  The lady is a victim.  Her right of privacy has been infringed.

Although the finding of apprehended by Justice Sten Kaye of apprehended bias against Sofronoff is of great interest to some because it involves delving into the private communications between the former judge and myself, Drummond’s legal challenge in the ACT Supreme Court amounts to yet another own goal.  Drumgold got an order for costs, but he didn’t get his reputation back.

The rest of the piece is a diatribe against Drumgold.  There is no pretence of any balance.  The lady is a known crusader.

The effrontery and divorce from reality is Trumpian.

The piece supports the following propositions.

1.  Albrechtsen was a loaded gun – viciously loaded – against Drumgold from the start.  She still is – now, more so, in self-defence.
2.  Any pretence of impartiality on her part was just that.
3. Sofronoff must have been or should have been aware of both of the above.
4. If follows that his conduct in dealing with her is an affront to our notions of fairness and common decency.
5. As a result, public faith in the findings of this inquiry and the administration of justice has fallen.
6. As a further result, the apprehension that many judges feel about some in the press will now be seen to be justified – Albrechtsen will be seen as lowering confidence in the press (except of course for the base).
7. The Australian is not worth the paper it is written on.  (And yes, here I own up to prejudice.  I have held that view for very many years.)

But what really gets to us is just how brazen people like Rupert or Lachlan Murdoch or Donald Trump are.

Whatever else may be said of the two protagonists, they are not novices.  There were 51 communications ‘off the record’.  Sofronoff was obliged to act fairly and openly.  He entered into this correspondence on the condition that it would not be revealed to the subject of the inquiry.  Are we really asked to believe that neither saw that this was as elemental a case of conflict of interest as you could find? 

Why is not the whole report now as vitiated in law as it is in public opinion?

I was involved in conducting public hearings for thirty years.  You only have to do one to know that what happened here was outrageous.

Let me put it this way.  Your professional conduct is the subject of a public inquiry conducted by an eminent lawyer with all the credentials for that purpose.  You are being pursued in the press by someone who makes a living from that kind of campaign and public vilification.  The person hearing the matter then finds against you in very grave and personal terms.  Then you find he has been secretly corresponding with your enemy all the time.  Which of them do you want to throttle first?