Anyone can say a person is corrupt and that is thrown around in politics and in the media but that is all they are allegations and unless they are tested in court the allegations are just gossip.
The documents at the heart of this affair cover a period seven years ago after the High Court made it clear that ICAC had been running investigations and making findings that had no basis in law.It subsequently emerged that 128 people had been adversely affected by ICAC’s mistaken understanding of its own governing statute.In order to placate the commission, the government of former premier Mike Baird took away the right to a legal remedy for all those who had been harmed by ICAC’s mistakes.The GIPA application against ICAC had been lodged by solicitor Andrew Christopher, who had hoped to provide the documents to his client, Cascade Coal chairman John McGuigan, who is bitterly disappointed. “People are looking at a federal ICAC to ensure transparency.“But once we gave the NSW commission power they are doing everything in their power to ensure a lack of transparency,” McGuigan said.Baird’s Validation Act had the effect of preventing Court of Appeal president Margaret Beazley – who went on to become NSW governor – from proceeding with a draft declaration that ICAC had invalidly declared McGuigan and other Cascade directors corrupt.The most egregious aspect of this affair is not that ICAC made a series of errors.The most regrettable part of this affair is that the government sided with an agency that had engaged in unlawful conduct.This is the opposite of what ICAC had been set up to achieve.Even without the documents that ICAC refuses to disclose, this incident should be viewed as a warning.
