Crime Commission Standen still

The NSW Crime Commission in post-Standen mode ... Reviews, inquiries and (hidden) reports ... What next? ... Who can get a grip on the crime-busting outfit? 

NSW's most power-laden law enforcement instrument is going through a mini-inquisition in an effort to shake-out its past follies and determine its future configuration. 

The Crime Commission has become a victim of its own overreaching power - the power to investigate serious drug offences, significant frauds and organised crime, to get deeply into bed with criminals and to conduct itself in secret. 

Not only does it investigate crime, the commission is responsible for recovering and, on occasions, misdirecting the proceeds of crime. 

Standen: post-conviction fallout for the Crime CommissionThe heady mix of secretiveness, power and loose money made the corruption of the commission's assistant director, Mark Standen, all the more sensational.

Last month Standen was convicted of perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to import and supply more than 300kg of pseudoephedrine (a useful ingredient in the manufacture of speed and ice) worth approximately $120 million. 

When Standen was first charged in June 2008, the NSW government moved to amended the Police Integrity Commission Act 1996 to allow the PIC to investigate the Crime Commission. 

In July 2008, the PIC appointed Peter Clark SC, a well respected Victorian barrister who had most recently led ASIC's investigations into HIH and James Hardie, to conduct a review of the Crime Commission's capacity to identify and manage serious misconduct risks. 

Clark's report was provided to the then minister, but it has not been tabled or made public. 

The PIC's later attempts to conduct inquiries into the Crime Commission were met with a volley of litigation in the Supreme Court of NSW. 

While the PIC lost the opening rounds (NSW CC v PIC; NSW CC & Giorguitti v PIC; and NSW CC & Giorgiutti v PIC (No.2)) the most recent decision of Justice Rothman reigned-in the Crime Commission's unaccountability and upheld the PIC's decision to conduct a public investigation. 

Giorgiutti: hearing into conductThe PIC's public hearings into alleged misconduct by the Crime Commissioner's top lawyer, John Giorgiutti, commenced on September 5. 

Among other wrinkles, The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that the Crime Commission had been a party to hundreds of settlements (with minimal judicial oversight) that allowed underworld types to keep their paws on a proportion of their criminal proceeds. 

In this vortex of proven corruption and suspected abuse of power, the O'Farrell government recently announced that retired Acting Supreme Court judge (and former president of the NSW division of the Liberal Party) David Patten will head a special commission of inquiry into the Crime Commission.

The terms of reference will be broad-ranging and go to the powers and structure of the commission.

The next NSW Crime Commissioner, to replace Phillip Bradley, will have to be installed by November. 

In July Sydney barrister Peter Singleton was appointed as the assistant commissioner and The Sydney Morning Herald reported that he is "widely expected" to take over from Bradley. 

Singleton himself has been the subject of unkind judicial remarks.

He went to the bar in 1999, having been admitted as a solicitor in 1990. Curiously, his application for silk was rejected last year and he did not apply again this year. 

Last month Singleton's conduct of litigation on behalf of the NSW government came in for some birching by the NSW Court of Appeal. 

The case concerned an application by a public interest group of a review of the way in which the Minister for Disability was providing and managing residential services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Bradley (right): lots of questionsJustice Beazley (with whom President Allsop and Acting Justice Handley agreed) considered that the barrister's submissions were "attended by some sophistry ... inconsistent ... [and] surrounded by confusion". 

Two of the residential centres at the heart of the litigation had been closed by the government after the notice of appeal was filed, but the court was only informed of this shortly before the close of submissions on behalf of the minister. 

Even though there was now no ongoing dispute between the parties, the appeal judges ploughed on and provided a judgment. 

Beazley JA said that the proceedings before the tribunal, the appeal panel and the appeal court, "became complicated" when the minister's legal representatives sought to characterise the issue as involving a jurisdictional question.

That issue - the identification of the minister's decision - was a question of particulars, not jurisdiction.

In December 2007, Justice Virginia Bell (before she was elevated on High) heard a case in which a plaintiff alleged a coronial inquiry into the death of a woman, in which Singleton was the counsel assisting the coroner, was being improperly conducted for forensic tactical advantage. 

The plaintiff was the chief suspect in the murder investigation into the woman's death. The police have no power to compel the plaintiff to answer questions.

Singleton, over objection by the plaintiff's counsel, asked questions during the coronial inquest that had the tendency to incriminate the plaintiff, and the coroner compelled the plaintiff to answer them. 

When the objection was taken, Singleton submitted to the coroner that the plaintiff was "in the same boat" as the other persons of interest.

When pressed by Justice Bell in the appeal to the Supreme Court, Singleton acknowledged that the plaintiff was the prime suspect (and therefore not "in the same boat" as the other people of interest). 

Justice Bell considered that Singleton's submissions to the coroner "misconceived the nature and scope" of the privilege against self-incrimination and upheld the plaintiff's claim for relief.

However worthy Peter Singleton's contribution to the Crime Commission, it would be bold move by the government in the current climate to appoint an insider to the job of commissioner, a position that is crying out for a top-notch outsider.