There are a few people on tenterhooks concerning the Federal Court case brought by The Australian newspaper against the Victorian Office of Police Integrity.
As reported on Crikey previously The Australian is seeking to prevent the OPI from briefing federal and state prosecuting authorities about a serious criminal offence committed during the research for reporter Cameron Stewart’s scoop of August last year, in which he published details of an anti-terrorism operation on the very morning on which raids took place.
Yesterday Justice Michelle Gordon was expected to publish her decision on two matters: the first matter is The Australian’s attempt to extend the injunction presently in place covering the OPI’s report, to prevent the briefing of prosecutors.
The second matter is the OPI’s application to be allowed to publish an abridged version of its report concerning the investigation into Stewart’s leak.
I, together with people from the OPI and News Limited, were checking regularly yesterday, but no decision was published at the time of Crikey being published today.
Meanwhile, there are new documents on the court file, but all of them are being kept confidential, despite Federal Court rules that suggest outlines of submissions, at least, are normally public.
The new documents include fresh submissions, lodged in the last few days, from both the OPI and News Ltd.
And, filed just yesterday, an affidavit of service from the Office of Police integrity – I understand that this relates to an attempt to have other states’ attorneys-general intervene on the issue of whether the Federal Court can stand between a state parliament and its officer, in this case the Director of the OPI.
The date nominated last week by the OPI on which it wishes to brief prosecutors was this Friday, 23 April.
Will we go down to the wire before we find out what is going to happen here?
I am sure I am not the only one to have the Federal Court’s website on constant refresh.
Probably the embarrassing fact that it was and is a pissant story with little or no substance but an awful lot of assumptions like all the other so called magnificent “terror raids”.
Is it is more likely that The Australian committed a serious breach of journalistic ethics in releasing the story contrary to undertakings provided, and it is trying to suppress this information.
Whether whether so-called antiterrorism operation was “pissant” or not is irrelevant. If the premature release of information had compromised police activity it would have been extremely serious.