Defenestration Ceremony at the University of Canberra

Reactionary columnist Janet Albrechtsen would have you believe that the Sofronoff report into Shane Drumgold, the former chief prosecutor of the ACT, is perfectly intact, a shining example of the rule of law.

In fact, in a judicial review of Sofronoff’s handiwork, Acting Justice Stephen Kaye found that the Sofronoff Board of Inquiry into the conduct of the Bruce Lehrmann rape case was entirely infected by “apprehended” bias – as far as the findings against Drumgold were concerned.

Drumgold was also partially successful in having some of Sofronoff’s work rejected on the basis of “unreasonableness” and denial of natural justice.

However, it was the finding that Sofronoff has been conducting a clandestine engagement with Albrechtsen, whose unhinged animus to Drumgold is legendary, that sank the legitimacy of the board’s findings.

Justice Kaye did not have the power to do anything other than to make declarations – otherwise, he could have ordered that the Cossack’s findings were a nullity.

This has not stopped Albrechtsen and her sidekick Stephen Rice (The Riceman Cometh) from continuing to shred Drumgold with articles that cherry-picked Kaye’s judgment and failed to provide a full and fair context.

Given what Sofronoff cooked up, Drumgold was obliged to quit his job as the DPP.

He has no practising certificate, and the ACT Bar Association is investigating Drumgold’s alleged conduct on its own motion.

Since January he has been teaching evidence to postgraduate students at the University of Canberra law school.

By all accounts he received glowing reports, so much so that he was offered a full-time contract to teach criminal law and evidence, to take effect from March 12.

He has been allocated an office with a name plate, a security pass, and keys. 

His association with Canberra University is longstanding – being a graduate, along with his wife and two daughters. He taught there and at the ANU on and off for over 20 years, was an active adjunct professor at UC, and chair of the law course advisory group.

Six days before he was to take up the full-time teaching position,  Albrechtsen and Rice attacked the appointment:

“Students at Canberra University have been startled to discover the identity of their new lecturer in the law of evidence: disgraced former ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold.”

There followed suspiciously anonymous quotes from academics expressing “astonishment”.

At a meeting on March 7 with the executive dean of the faculty, Professor Uwe Dulleck, he was told that due to the media circus, his appointment had been rescinded. 

There was no acknowledgement that the finding of apprehended bias had rendered worthless the adverse findings by Sofronoff’s Board of Review. The indecent and unhinged media attacks on Drumgold had cast the die. 

For the second time in a year, he emptied his office and returned home to face an extended period of unemployability as a lawyer. 

Oddly enough, on June 13 the Hon. Walter Sofronoff KC is to deliver the Rule of Law Institute’s address in honour of its founding father Robin Speed. 

This is a milestone for the institute to invite a guest speaker who conspicuously trashed principles which the rule of law holds dear.  

We asked Professor Dulleck and Professor Maree Sainsbury, acting head of the law school, to respond and explain. In a woeful display of academic rigor mortis they have been unable to come up with anything.  

This news story was broken by our sister organ 500Words.com.au – and is republished here with kind permission.