Kumanjayi Walker inquest: Zachary Rolfe launches complaint against NT Coroner
Former Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe has lodged a complaint accusing the Coroner of bias. Find out why.
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Former Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe has lodged a complaint accusing the Coroner of bias after she delivered her findings into the death of Kumanjayi Walker in front of an activist group’s banner.
Sky News has confirmed Mr Rolfe lodged the formal complaint last week with the Northern Territory Judicial Commission, asking it to review the conduct of Coroner Elisabeth Armitage.
Ms Armitage oversaw the inquest into the death of Mr Walker, who was shot dead by Mr Rolfe after he tried to arrest him in Yuendumu on November 9, 2019.
On July 7 this year, Ms Armitage delivered her final report into Mr Walker’s death in person at the community, almost three years after the inquiry began its public hearings.
It is understood Mr Rolfe’s complaint relates to three specific elements of Ms Armitage’s inquiry.
Two of those relate to her decision to deliver her findings at Yuendumu.
Mr Rolfe has complained Ms Armitage delivered her findings at the PAW Media building in Yuendumu, rather than in a neutral courthouse setting.
He has also raised concerns the Coroner delivered the findings in front of a prominently displayed banner belonging to the group “Karrinjala Muwajarri”.
The group represents elders, families and community members from the Warlpiri nation calling for police to be banned from carrying guns in remote Indigenous communities.
A statement on the group’s website calls for the 2022 acquittal of Mr Rolfe over Mr Walker’s murder in the Northern Territory Supreme Court in Darwin to be thrown out, and for him to be retried in Alice Springs.
It also says it wants Mr Rolfe to face customary lore at Yuendumu.
Video footage posted online shows the large banner being put up behind Ms Armitage as she begins delivering her findings at Yuendumu on July 7.
Mr Rolfe has argued Mr Armitage was aware the banner was behind her, but continued to deliver her findings, even though the group had advocated physical violence against him through spearing.
He has also raised concerns Ms Armitage did not address or correct the Karrinjala Muwajarri group’s leader, Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, when he communicated to her his demand for a retrial and for violent retribution against judicial officers involved in his trial, when she visited Yuendumu with the coronial team in 2023.
The third aspect of Mr Rolfe’s complaint relates to Ms Armitage’s failure to properly investigate the actions of five senior police officers who provided statutory declarations to her inquiry, claiming awards distributed at the elite Territory Response Group’s Christmas party were not racist.
Mr Rolfe had told the inquiry of his knowledge of the awards when giving evidence, before the five officers’ statutory declarations were provided to the court.
Mr Rolfe subsequently provided copies of the awards which included the “c**n of the year” award, and the “Nugedah” award for the “most c**n-like” behaviour.
Ms Armitage found the awards were “grotesque examples of racism”, but did not recall the five officers to explain why they had provided statutory declarations saying the awards were not racist.
Mr Rolfe has argued the Coroner has breached judicial standards of impartiality and requested her conduct by investigated.
It’s understood the complaint was sent to the NT Judicial Commission last week and that the commission’s principal investigation officer Lang Williamson has subsequently asked Mr Rolfe to provide further information.
When contacted, Mr Williamson said there were strict confidentiality provisions regarding complaint information.
“The Commission therefore is unable to comment on individual complaints, or to confirm whether any individual has made a complaint against any specific judicial officer,” he said.
Ms Armitage was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline.
Mr Rolfe’s complaint can be revealed at the same time Ms Armitage faces significant criticism from senior members of the Northern Territory Government.
Speaking in the NT Parliament on Tuesday, Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Robyn Cahill described a report by Ms Armitage into the domestic violence deaths of four Aboriginal women as “underwhelming” and “uninspiring”.
Ms Cahill questioned the time and expense of Ms Armitage’s inquiries, after she took over the role from long-serving Coroner Greg Cavanagh in 2022.
“Mr Cavanagh’s reports were undertaken in a timely manner, his reports were concise, his recommendations short, sharp and clearly defined. This compared to Coroner Armitage’s approach which has been protracted, resulting in lengthy reports delivered in a manner seeming to lack the humility one might expect from an officer of the court, more focused on the reveal rather than the result,” she said.
Her comments followed a Sky News report showing two NT Government departments spent more than $7.4 million on the inquest into Mr Walker’s death.
Government sources say the final cost of the inquiry to taxpayers could be more than $11 million.
Ms Armitage subsequently released a statement through a court spokesman defending the length and cost of the inquiry and noting various legal challenges made by Mr Rolfe and another police officer to the Supreme Court had contributed to the delays.
“Parties are entitled to exercise their legal rights, and the Coroner’s Court is bound by the rulings of higher courts, meaning that it is required to wait for those rulings before proceedings could be recommenced,” the spokesman said.
“In this case, each of the appeals against the Coroner were unsuccessful and the Court resumed as soon as possible after receiving the rulings.”
Labor MP Chansey Paech defended the Coroner and said it was absurd the government was criticising her for doing a thorough job.
“You’ve had the Chief Minister come out now and start talking about changes to the Coroner’s Act, rather than accept recommendations of the coronial inquests,” he told the Parliament.
“That’s what you’re seeing. That is not good.”
Originally published as Kumanjayi Walker inquest: Zachary Rolfe launches complaint against NT Coroner
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