Fight to lift Lawyer X saga gag order to go to trial
A fight to lift gag orders stopping the Royal Commission into the management of police informants from revealing the ins and outs of the Lawyer X saga will go to trial, in a bid to revoke dozens of suppression orders.
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A fight to lift gag orders stopping the royal commission into the management of police informants from revealing the ins and outs of the Lawyer X saga will go to trial.
The commission’s chairperson applied to the Supreme Court to vary or revoke suppression orders made in dozens of cases between 2006 and 2017.
The chair claims the orders — made to protect the identities, images and histories of a range of murderers, drug dealers and thugs from the Melbourne gangland war era — make it difficult for the commission to write a meaningful report from its 127-day inquiry into the police’s handling of their prolific informer, barrister Nicola Gobbo.
The parties returned to the Supreme Court yesterday where it was revealed they had not been able to come to a resolution. Justice David Beach ordered a trial be heard by three Court of Appeal judges on June 23.
More than a dozen lawyers representing 63 unnamed defendants took part in the proceeding, with all referring to them by numbers to ensure their identities were not revealed.
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