Christian Porter’s defamation case against ABC delayed after barrister challenge
Sparks flew in court as a challenge to Christian Porter’s lawyer collided with a preliminary hearing in his defamation case against the ABC.
Christian Porter’s defamation lawsuit against the ABC has been delayed while a friend of the woman who accused him of rape attempts to remove his barrister from the case.
Federal Court Justice Jayne Jagot adjourned a planned case management hearing on Friday morning after Jo Dyer, the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week, this week filed a separate legal action against defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou.
Ms Dyer is seeking an injunction preventing Ms Chrysanthou from acting for Mr Porter on the basis she gave the barrister confidential information relevant to the defamation case in the course of a lawyer-client relationship last year.
The unexpected legal tussle, scheduled for a three-day hearing from May 24, comes days ahead of a highly-anticipated June hearing in Mr Porter’s case where the former attorney-general will fight to strike out parts of the ABC’s defence.
Justice Jagot initially said on Friday she was minded to either stay the proceedings until Ms Dyer’s application was resolved, or at least extract an undertaking from Ms Chrysanthou that she would stop working on the case in the meantime.
But sparks flew as eminent barrister Bret Walker entered the court to tell Justice Jagot her two options were “wrong in principle, and seriously so”.
Mr Walker, who represented Cardinal George Pell in his successful High Court appeal, told the judge either of her options would set a “dreadful precedent”, effectively allowing any random person to insist a barrister be temporarily barred from appearing in a case.
He also noted Ms Dyer had not asked for Ms Chrysanthou to be removed from the case while her application was resolved.
Justin Gleeson, acting for the ABC, pointed to Mr Porter’s claim that ABC journalist Louise Milligan was motivated by malice in publishing her story and this could partly be proven by her failure to disclose her close friendship with his accuser’s friends.
The ABC and Ms Milligan deny this.
Mr Gleeson suggested one of those friends could be Ms Dyer, arguing this meant her role in the case, and her communications with Ms Milligan and Mr Porter’s accuser, were “an important part of the issues”.
He said if Ms Dyer’s application ended in a finding that Ms Chrysanthou should never have been involved in Mr Porter’s case, every time the barrister appeared in court presented “a risk to the administration of justice”.
“It is a harm that is very difficult to unwind after the event,” he said.
Justice Jagot said she accepted “to some extent the eggs are already scrambled” after Mr Gleeson pointed out Ms Chrysanthou had been involved in the case from beginning to present, signing off on several key documents.
But, she said, Mr Gleeson’s proposal that “we shouldn’t be adding more eggs to the bowl” was compelling.
She simply adjourned the hearing, neither staying the case nor asking Ms Chrysanthou to step aside in the meantime.
A short hearing relating to Ms Dyer’s application was also held on Friday before Justice Thomas Thawley.
Among the matters in contest are whether Ms Dyer actually retained Ms Chrysanthou to act for her, what information was disclosed and whether it was confidential, Mr Porter’s barrister Christopher Withers said.
Mr Withers said it was “common ground” that Ms Chrysanthou did not remember the conversation she had with Ms Dyer.
Mr Porter is suing the ABC and Ms Milligan over a story in which she reported a senior cabinet minister was the subject of an historical rape allegation.
Mr Porter stepped forward to say he was the accused minister after days of speculation. He contends he was identifiable in the article despite not being named.
He alleges the ABC defamed him by falsely suggesting he had brutally raped the 16-year-old in 1988, that police reasonably suspected him of doing so and that it contributed to the woman taking her own life.
The ABC denies the article suggested he actually raped the girl but argues it is true that he was reasonably suspected of doing so.
The national broadcaster has also filed a defence of qualified privilege, arguing the article was in the public interest and they had acted reasonably in publishing it.
Mr Porter’s case against the ABC returns to court on May 26 and Ms Dyer’s case against Ms Chrysanthou will be heard on May 24-26.
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