NT Law & Order Society chasing senior Darwin silk … Federal Court rejects stay of Law Society complaint against Alistair Wyvill SC … Ancient political saga … Wild ways of the Top End … Buffalo Bruce reports
The society is on the cusp of commencing disciplinary proceedings against Wyvill in the Top End Disciplinary Tribunal. Wyvill, head of William Forster Chambers and a former president of the NT Bar ‘n’ Grill, claimed the scope and content of the complaint was not adequately spelled out in writing.
His argument didn’t wash with Robert Bromwich in the Federal Court, who found the Darwin silk had a sufficient description of the substance of the complaint. Further, there was not a strong prima facie case that the disciplinary proceedings would be invalid. Wyvill’s application was dismissed with costs.
The story has been going on for yonks and reeks of the rancid aroma of Top End politics. After Ghastly Adam Giles took over as chief minister in March 2013 he set-up an inquiry under former Australian Crime Commissioner and deputy head of the AFP, John Lawler, to probe the circumstances of the transfer to the NT trade union movement in the dying days of the ALP government of Stella Maris, an historic property in Darwin. The proposal was that Unions NT would have a 10-year crown lease for no rent, but it transpired that the lease did not proceed.
On May 26, 2015, Lawler reported with a finding that an ALP government minister, Delia Lawrie, had improperly engineered the transfer on the day before the caretaker period commenced prior to the August 2012 Territory election.
Wyvill and solicitor Cathy Spurr acted pro bono for Delia Lawrie at the Lawler inquiry.
After the election Lawrie became leader of the Opposition and sought judicial review of Lawler’s work, claiming that she had not been given an opportunity to respond to the findings before they were published and been denied procedural fairness.
On April 1, 2015, Justice Stephen Southwood dismissed Lawrie’s application and in the process made some upsetting findings of his own – that there was a strategy devised by Wyvill, Spurr and a political adviser, to “ignore, disengage or discredit” the commission of inquiry by abandoning further participation and claiming that Laurie had exhausted Wyvill and Cathy Spurr’s pro bono legal services.
Southwood said Wyvill had counselled Laurie in making false statements and that her pro bono legal services had not been exhausted and therefore the applicant had waived her rights to procedural fairness.
“I would prefer to adopt the position that this process never had any independence from the beginning, they picked [inquiry commissioner John] Lawler because they knew he would do what he was asked to do and this just confirms that this whole process was a set up from the beginning. Writing to Lawler suggests that he has an independence to be influenced! What do you think?”
It all ended in tears. Laurie was kicked out of the Labor Party and Wyvill resigned as president of the NT bar.
Nonetheless, the Lawler inquiry was widely regarded as a “get Labor” stitch-up on the part of a nasty Chief Minister – an unnecessary and unedifying political stunt. To that extent the inquiry deserved the treated with a lack of respect because its sole purpose was the destruction of a political opponent rather than the rectification of an important policy mishap.
There have been a series of other twists and turns before we got to this point. There was an application for Southwood to recuse himself over a costs case related to the Lawrie litigation.
Wyvill and Lawrie sought Southwood’s disqualification on grounds of apprehended bias because his wife Denise Southwood was a senior official at the NT Department of AG and Justice, and privy to the strategy being run by Lawler in the case before her husband.
On June 22, 2015, Justice Southwood found he was not apprehendedly biased and rejected the application.
On June 2, 2016 three foreign judges sitting as the NT Court of Appeal, Doyle and Duggan from SA and Heehan from WA, found that while Lawrie was not denied procedural fairness by Lawler importantly she had not waived it, as Southwood found. Therefore, there was no necessity for the judge to have said all those beastly things about the lawyers.
“As to the letter of 15 April 2014, sent by Ms Spurr to Mr Lawler, we respectfully differ from Southwood J. We find nothing on the face of the letter to suggest that Ms Lawrie was relinquishing any unfulfilled entitlement to procedural fairness. If anything, the statement in the letter that ‘our clients remain vitally interested in the outcome’ suggests the contrary …
The effect of the letter does not turn on the motive or strategy that the judge explored, and did not call for close scrutiny of the motives and strategy that lay behind the letter …
We consider, with respect, that Southwood J erred in this respect … There was no reason to explore the motives and strategy that lay behind the conduct of Ms Lawrie and her advisers.”
Going after Wyvill seems misplaced when you consider the significant shortcomings of Top End justice. Quite apart from the relentless legal machinery for the incarceration of Indigenous Australians there are flagrant breaches of standards, such as magistrate Peter Maley blithely handing out CLP how-to-vote cards and serving on the party’s fundraising forum.
Maley was defended by former attorney general John Elferink, whose grasp of the separation of powers was of Bjelke-Petersenesque proportions. Elferink told parliament:
“The good thing about this is democracy and freedom of speech. A magistrate in the Northern Territory is allowed to have a political opinion. What sort of a society are we living in? It is a fantastic society where a magistrate can have a political opinion, where he can be a member of a political party … Good on him if he wants to make a donation to the member for Port Darwin … Thank you very much, Peter Maley, the magistrate who has shown an interest in the Country Liberals. ”
Still the Law Society presses on against Wyvill.
Justinian’s related reports:
Journal Entry by Justinian on June 4, 2015
Application for Justice Southwood to recuse himself from costs application against former NT bar president Alistair Wyvill… Judge made adverse findings about Wyvill‘s conduct at commission of inquiry … Judge’s wife involved in arranging legal representation and funds for lawyers to represent th …
NT bar president in botched legal strategy
Journal Entry by Justinian on April 2, 2015
Journal Entry by Justinian on June 10, 2016
Lawrie v Lawler … Case that has riven the Top End legal community … Foreign judges brought in for appeal that basically clears the former president of the NT bar of misconduct findings … Commission of inquiry set up by political opponents of former minister … Full examination of the judgment …
Journal Entry by Justinian on June 3, 2016
Wyvill gets a breather from NT appeal court … Grant Samuel rejigs Slater & Gordon … Barrister suggests that if his client had more money someone else would have been briefed … Bluto Watch Wyvill and the waiver Appeal judges overturned Southwood’s idea about the waiver DARWIN silk Ali …
Journal Entry by Justinian on July 31, 2015
The Stella Maris fallout continues … NT Supremo says there’s no apprehended bias in his hearing a costs case where his wife has been privy to details of the defendant’s evidence and strategy … Judge insists his wife is detached … Lay observer would not think a married couple would talk about m …
Journal Entry by Justinian on May 29, 2015
Cost battle looms over disastrous findings for former NT opposition leader and her brief Alistair Wyvill … Waiver of client privilege … The CLP’s sting operation that actually stung … NT Law Society sits on its hands … Kevin Childs, with Top End field-agent Buffalo Bruce, on the case DA …
Journal Entry by Justinian on June 15, 2015
Senior NT lawyers seek disqualification of judge for apprehended bias … Costs case flowing from judicial review of politically charged findings by commission of inquiry … Email reveals that judge’s wife was privy to strategy and opinions of one side in challenge to commissioner’s findings, which …
NT AG rejects bar’s call for inquiry into political magistrate
Journal Entry by Justinian on August 11, 2014
Can a judicial officer be involved in party politics? … Yes, of course, but only in the Northern Territory where the usual proprieties are in a state of suspension … Country Liberal Party beak kept-up political connections and activity while on the bench … So what, says the AG – friend and all …