Adjudication No. 266 (January 1986) [1986] APC 2

ADJUDICATION No. 266 (January 1986)

Ms Mary Gaudron, the Solicitor-General for NSW, has complained about the following statement in John Slee's Law column in the Sydney Morning Herald of October 8, 1985.

It is on record that the NSW Government was advised by the Solicitor-General, Ms Mary Gaudron, QC, that Mr Briese's evidence in relation to Justice Murphy would not stand up in Court. That assessment took a battering from the Murphy jury.

Ms Gaudron says that she has never advised anyone in relation to Mr Briese's allegations concerning Justice Murphy. In explanation of the statement, the paper refers to the opinion given to the NSW Government in relation to allegations by Mr Briese against Judge Foord, which opinion was published in edited form in The Bulletin of August 28, 1984. In particular the opinion dealt with suggestions by Mr Briese that there may have been a conspiracy involving Justice Murphy and Judge Foord. However a careful reading of this opinion shows that it does not directly deal with the strength of Mr Briese's allegations against Mr Justice Murphy. With hindsight, Mr Slee accepted, in discussion with the Council, that the statement was not strictly correct, but he explained that the point he had wished to convey was that Ms Gaudron's general assessment of Mr Briese's evidence, as expressed in the opinion, was not shared by the jury in the trial of Mr Justice Murphy.

This is a comment that Mr Slee would have been entitled to make, and had he made it there would have been no cause for complaint. However under the pressures of space and the desire to simplify matters for lay readers he expressed himself so elliptically as to convey the erroneous impression that Ms Gaudron had advised the NSW Government in relation to the case against Mr Justice Murphy.

The mistake did not affect the thrust of Mr Slee's article and the Council accepts that it was accidental. However it must uphold the complaint.