Lawyers abandon the law on Christian Porter

Malcolm Turnbull blindsided his former colleagues by addressing the Porter allegations on ABC’s 7.30 program.

You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand that two wrongs don’t make a right. But it should help. Or does it? The past week suggests lawyers are among the worst at comprehending this principle.

It is entirely predictable that many journalists, with no grounding in the law, would take part in the public shaming of Christian Porter. For them, and others, this is corrective “justice” for the many women who have quietly suffered from discrimination, sexual harassment and rape.

However, the warm-up act to their demand for the independent inquiry has trashed not just sound journalism, but also our democracy. Their public show trial relies on a skewed version of alleged events that is plainly incomplete and ignores fundamental legal principles such as the presumption of innocence and rule of law.

Witness Four Corners’ disgraceful airing on Monday night of untestable revelations from the dead woman’s counsellor about her allegations of a rape 33 years ago. Is this legal? It is clearly unethical. Why would women seek help from a therapist if their conversations could be revealed?

That we have courts and a legal system established over centuries to avoid sham trials makes no difference to sanctimonious journalists. The Guardian’s Katharine Murphy displayed poor self-awareness when, on Insiders on Sunday, she said “it’s not really clear who the mob is” in response to the Prime Minister’s warning that we should not succumb to mob rule in Australia.

Murphy is part of the mob that believes Porter should be subjected to an independent inquiry where he cannot face his accuser or prove his innocence. Joining her is The Australian Financial Review’s Laura Tingle, who seems to think it is fine for Porter’s reputation to be ruined by unproven allegations because “people’s lives are destroyed by allegations all the time”. Tingle is equally dismissive about the presumption of innocence, asking “What if he is not (innocent)?”.

WATCH: @murpharoo on how the Prime Minister is treating the historical allegation against Christian Porter and Brittany Higgins's case differently. #Insiders#auspolpic.twitter.com/1EX6Bc7hGt

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) March 6, 2021

This mob includes many ABC journalists who, in their overzealous commentary, failed to report the woman’s long and sad history of mental illness, or her several suicide attempts, or that police did not pursue an investigation due to lack of evidence and the woman’s statement that she did not wish to pursue her claims citing medical and personal issues.

The mob baying for an independent inquiry has not addressed three critical questions. First, how can any inquiry resolve anything justly when the woman who made the allegation is dead, she suffered from a history of mental illness to the point where her family were concerned she may have fabricated claims about Porter, and NSW Police found insufficient evidence to proceed?

Second, will the media call stumps on their shaming of Porter if an investigation fails to find him guilty? Third, under what circumstances will they defend the presumption of innocence — apart from when it suits them?

Journalists failing to understand basic legal principles is bad enough. It is far worse when lawyers favour a flawed ad hoc inquiry. Described in a news report as “top lawyers”, barristers Jane Needham SC and Larissa Andelman and past president of the Law Council of Australia, Pauline Wright, also said there should be an independent inquiry. Needham said “an inquiry would allow for all sides to be heard”. How so? The woman is dead.

If “top” lawyers back an in­herently flawed inquiry, why wouldn’t others turn their backs on the legal system as the proper means to determine guilt or innocence? Witness the frightful mess at law firm MinterEllison last week when chief executive Annette Kimmitt emailed 2500 staff expressing her displeasure that a senior partner is acting for Christian Porter. In her email, Kimmitt said the matter “has certainly triggered hurt for me. I know that for many of you it may be a tough day and I want to apologise for the pain you may be experiencing”. The matter should have been considered “through the lens of our Purposes and Values”.

What’s the purpose of a law firm, let alone a law degree, if not to uphold the importance of the presumption of innocence? What’s next? Do away with judges, courts, holding trials, testing ­allegations and evidence, and providing a defence to an accused? How much sweeter and swifter for activists with a different set of “values” to go straight to guilty verdicts when it suits them.

We are witnessing the high cost of law firms going woke. In their eagerness to appear inclusive and welcoming to young lawyers and hip clients, they risk prioritising a set of new “values” that undermine our democracy. If Minters is downgrading the presumption of innocence, it should take down its legal shingle and re-open as an activist organisation that snubs basic legal principles.

Kimmitt is not a lawyer. Before joining Minters, she was accounts leader at an accounting and consulting firm. Maybe that explains her misguided email to staff. But it is especially disappointing to read reports some younger lawyers at Minters support Kimmitt’s intervention. Yet neither is it a complete surprise.

As someone who taught first-year law students at Sydney University briefly in the 1990s, I saw the rot set in. I recall the faces of the students, kids who had worked their butts off at school to study law, glaze over when forced to study topics soaked in politics such as “minorities and the law” and “women and the law” before learning the basic elements of our legal system.

If first-year law students faced this in the 1990s, why would today’s young, so-called “progressive” lawyers defend the idea that a minister in a conservative government is entitled to the presumption of innocence?

It’s heartening to hear that older partners at Minters are miffed about Kimmitt’s email. But the sad reality is that plenty of high-profile people with law ­degrees, such as Penny Wong and Malcolm Turnbull, are ­driven by their own base motives to dis­regard the presumption of innocence. Why wouldn’t young lawyers follow their dangerous lead?