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The messenger-shooting continues in the ACT, in the wake of the explosive inquiry that led to the resignation of its top prosecutor. The Sofronoff inquiry made findings of serious misconduct of DPP Shane Drumgold during his prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins. Rather than be fired, Drumgold was allowed to resign.
And the overwhelming narrative of the left media is less on Drumgold’s extraordinary conduct as a high-ranking justice official and more on shooting the messenger. The media are attacking inquiry head Walter Sofronoff over the leaking of the report after the Barr Labor government tried to keep its findings secret for weeks.
And while the Barr Labor government is yet to decide whether to charge Drumgold for perverting the course of justice, they’re already talking about charging Sofronoff.
In an extraordinary move, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr suggested inquiry chairman Walter Sofronoff could face charges or a referral to the national corruption watchdog over the premature leaking of his report into the handling of the trial of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann.
Bear in mind that this is the government that tried to keep the report from the public eye for at least a month. Even after its findings were leaked, the government held off on its response for days.
Nor will it, despite the obvious question marks hanging over Drumgold’s conduct as a prosecutor, review any past cases.
The ACT government has endorsed findings that its chief prosecutor, Shane Drumgold, acted grossly unethically, but the capital’s Labor-Greens administration will not investigate other cases he led and has not decided whether to charge him.
On Monday afternoon, the Barr government released the full report of the Sofronoff inquiry, announcing it supported its 10 recommendations but saying it did not consider it necessary to look at any of the 18 cases Mr Drumgold conducted or participated in since his appointment as Director of Public Prosecutions in 2019.
The Australian
This is a government giving every appearance of hoping the whole thing will just blow over — and sending a signal that whistleblowers will be punished.
Shane Drumgold has claimed that the leak of the Sofronoff Report denied him procedural fairness.
The same notion has been echoed by other people who appear more concerned about a leak to a newspaper than the substance of a report that found that the chief prosecutor was guilty of serious misconduct in office […]
Drumgold, along with sections of the media, and the ACT Labor government, can excite themselves all they wish about leaks to a newspaper. The Australian did not breach an embargo and will not reveal the source of the leak.
As I previously wrote, it’s especially rich for The Guardian, of all media, to get on their high horse about leakers.
It’s curious that those who have spent years defending Julian Assange for leaking stories that may have undermined national security are now hot and bothered about a leaked report that found a DPP who wields enormous state power against citizens behaved improperly.
A case of politics or sore losers? Maybe both.
The Australian
And, regardless of the self-serving squawking of the left and the media, the facts of its findings are the key issue, here.
It should also be remembered that the inquiry was called for in the first place by Drumgold himself. He, and no doubt the Barr government, just didn’t get the answers they would have liked.
