Lawyer X royal commissioners to be named

Daniel Andrews says he’s focused on finding royal commissioners with “some distance” from the Victorian criminal justice system.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, centre, says the royal commission will look more broadly at police use of informants, examining cases other than that of Lawyer X.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says he expects to name royal commissioners to investigate the Lawyer X scandal “quite soon”, with the focus on appointing people with “some distance” from the Victorian criminal justice system.

Mr Andrews announced the inquiry last week, after High Court and Court of Appeal judgments were made public, revealing Victoria Police’s two-year, $4.52 million court battle to try to keep its use of a defence lawyer as a registered informant secret.

Asked whether the government intended to announce the two royal commissioners and the terms of reference of the inquiry this week, Mr Andrews would only say he expected to make an announcement “quite soon”.

“Quite soon, and the reason I say that is that to find the right people — and I think you all appreciate that some distance away from the Victorian criminal justice system is a very important part of this — we’ve been working very hard,” Mr Andrews said.

“We’re very close to making some announcements, but the other thing too is as a courtesy and in order to get the right outcome, the proper outcome, you need to make sure that there’s a bit of an iterative process between draft terms of reference and what the royal commissioners think is absolutely necessary, so that work is ongoing and we’ll have some announcements to make.”

Mr Andrews indicated the royal commission would look more broadly at police use of informants, examining cases other than that of Lawyer X, also known as EF.

“There are essentially three key tasks to complete: how many people are in fact affected, how many convictions are unsafe because of the practices that went on in terms of the person known as EF in the High Court judgment, secondly what changes need to be made in terms of culture and practice around the management of human sources,” he said.

“That’s not limited just to this instance. It’s a broader remit than that. And thirdly, what advice can a royal commission give us on a process to deal with clemency claims, as well as any compensation that might be sought.

“Those three areas are divided into two parts. The first will have to report before July 1, and the second and third areas will be dealt with by December 1.”

Mr Andrews declined to say whether the $4.52 million spent by Victoria Police to try to keep the use of Lawyer X suppressed was money well spent.

“There were a number of appeals that were motivated (according to Victoria Police) … in the first instance in terms of the safety of the person involved and that person’s children,” he said.

“The key point here is that what went on shouldn’t have. What went on was completely unacceptable. We need to have this royal commission and we will.”

Asked to respond to calls from retired barrister Peter Faris QC for Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton to resign due to his role at the Office of Police Integrity when Lawyer X was engaged as an informant, Mr Andrews said Mr Asthon had his full confidence.

“He’s doing a very important job and he’s doing it well,” the Premier said.