A former judge’s decision to leak confidential material from an inquiry into Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal prosecution was an attempt at transparency not an act of corruption, his lawyers say.
Walter Sofronoff KC has asked the Federal Court to toss a March finding by the ACT Integrity Commission that the former judge engaged in serious corrupt conduct.
The commission’s probe stemmed from Mr Sofronoff’s leaks to a journalist.
But the watchdog’s adverse finding was a “serious offence against the administration of justice”, Mr Sofronoff’s barrister Adam Pomerenke KC said during a hearing on Monday.
Mr Sofronoff was not corrupt, malicious or dishonest, the barrister told Justice Wendy Abrahams.
Rather, he genuinely believed he was acting in the public interest by sending documents like witness statements to the media.
“Even if Mr Sofronoff was wrong in his view, the fact remains that he genuinely and honestly held it,” Mr Pomerenke said.
“At worst it could be characterised as an erroneous attempt to ensure accuracy and transparency in the public discourse.”
Mr Sofronoff chaired a board of inquiry into the ACT’s criminal justice system after Lehrmann’s controversy-plagued prosecution.
The former Liberal staffer was accused of raping then-colleague Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office at Parliament House in 2019.
A 2022 criminal trial was abandoned without a verdict due to juror misconduct.
Lehrmann lost a defamation lawsuit he brought over media reporting of Ms Higgins’ allegations but has appealed a judge’s finding the rape claim was true on the balance of probabilities.
The Sofronoff-led inquiry found the ACT’s top prosecutor, Shane Drumgold, had lost objectivity over the Lehrmann case and knowingly lied about a note of his meeting with broadcaster Lisa Wilkinson.
Mr Drumgold resigned and launched a legal challenge to the findings in the ACT Supreme Court.
It found the majority of the inquiry’s findings were not legally unreasonable, but it struck down an adverse finding about how Mr Drumgold cross-examined then-Liberal senator Linda Reynolds during Lehrmann’s criminal trial.
In March, the ACT Integrity Commission also found the majority of the inquiry’s findings were not legally unreasonable.
But it found Mr Sofronoff’s behaviour during the inquiry gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias and he might have been influenced by the publicly expressed views of journalist Janet Albrechtsen.
Mr Sofronoff repeatedly messaged the News Corp columnist and eventually provided her an advance copy of his probe’s final report.
Mr Pomerenke told the Federal Court on Monday the ACT corruption body had admitted it made an error in finding Mr Sofronoff might have engaged in contempt.
The claimed contempt stemmed out of leaks to the media despite directions made to parties during the inquiry to suppress certain documents.
But the notion that the head of an inquiry could be in contempt of himself was “absurd and irrational”, Mr Pomerenke said.
This concession was enough to toss the findings against his client, he told the court.
Any individual error could not be “disentangled” from the final finding that the former judge engaged in serious corrupt conduct, the barrister said.
The hearing continues.
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