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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2022-02-09 Daily Xml
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Criminal Justice System

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:52): Wilful blindness involves conscious avoidance of truth and gives rise to an inference of knowledge of the crime in question. It is with dismay that I report it is a form of corruption practised quite freely in this state, at the highest levels of government, the criminal justice system and law enforcement. It is far more scandalous because they know it happens yet they tolerate it in total silence to avoid opening a Pandora's box.

Most concerning is that the very department responsible for law and order, the Attorney-General's Department, tolerates and obfuscates corrupt conduct. The most conspicuous example has created international unrest and unease among miscarriage of justice groups and eminent jurists. It is now the subject of a new book by Drew Rooke, A Witness of Fact, which is centred on the state's disgraced former chief pathologist, Dr Colin Manock, who was unqualified to carry out thousands of autopsies and assisted in securing over 400 criminal convictions and therefore should never have been allowed to give expert evidence.

Rooke has spoken to a raft of forensic and legal experts and they are unanimous in their verdict on Dr Manock's 27-year tenure: he was a fraud. The state government knew it because it was admitted in court proceedings going back 50 years. Attorneys-general past and present knew it. Judges, including the current Chief Justice, knew it. Prosecutors knew it. Barristers knew it. Police knew it. Yet matters which relied on his expert testimony proceeded unchallenged—unsafe verdicts sending innocent people to gaol. So why has not the word 'scandal' in South Australia's criminal history been addressed?

Australia's longest serving Aboriginal prisoner Derek Bromley's leave application to the High Court against his murder conviction, which relied on the improbable testimony of Dr Manock, is being challenged by the Crown. Mr Bromley's supporters wrote to the Attorney-General and the DPP, former Judge Martin Hinton, requesting that, as model litigants, they should disclose in their submissions in any legal proceedings reliant on Dr Manock's evidence that he had no relevant qualifications, credibility or competence as an expert witness. Going by their responses, they are not listening.

Professor Bob Moles, a respected campaigner against miscarriages of justice, sent this to me today:

How on earth can prosecutors charge people for disobeying laws if they themselves are willing to disregard the law? For me, the idea of a former Supreme Court judge declaring that he would disregard the law to maintain the conviction of an Aboriginal man who has served nearly 40 years in prison on the basis of a person acknowledged to be corrupt by his employer, the coroner, numerous judges and the Attorney General (VC) [Vickie Chapman] is manifestly absurd.

As a model litigant, the Crown has a duty to disclose evidence which could even undermine their own case. Dogged lawyer John Viscariello has been battling a corrupt system for decades, which began with rapacious insolvency practices of insolvency giant PBB (Prentice Barbery Barilla) and one of the biggest law firms in town, Minter Ellison.

It has been a tortuous journey that would have seen many quickly surrender, but amidst setbacks he scored notable victories, including a Supreme Court judgement that led to a review into the failure of the then Legal Practitioners Conduct Board to investigate numerous complaints he made about the conduct of those who occupied the highest level of the powerful law firm, including clandestine deals between insolvency practitioners and lawyers. In the firing line was then QC Mark Livesey—now the judge heading the Full Court of Appeal—and Minter's senior management, including lawyers Nigel McBride and Greg May.

Following an unrelated fiasco, the conduct board was replaced with the Office of the Legal Profession Conduct Commissioner. Mr May not only got the plum job as the first commissioner but, paradoxically, also had to deal with Mr Viscariello's complaints about him taking years to investigate. So Mr May had to investigate himself, his old pals at Minter Ellison and bench-bound Mr Livesey.

But the legal hunter became the hunted. On its own motion, Commissioner May had Mr Viscariello struck off and then tried to have him declared vexatious. Here were obvious conflicts of interest—which Mr May later conceded to the court he had not disclosed, and three judges noted a total of five times—putting the policeman of lawyers in breach of the Public Sector (Honesty and Accountability) Act, which carries significant penalties and gaol.

Questions I have asked the previous Attorney-General about Mr May's seemingly unassailable position despite these findings of improper conduct continue to be fobbed off. Even the integrity agencies do not seem to care. Wilful blindness—

Time expired.

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