The attorney general’s department said that Robertson reviewed relevant materials and interviewed employees named in Hollingworth’s judgment but found “there is no conduct that should be investigated as giving rise to a potential breach or breaches of the Australian Public Service (APS) code of conduct, and no breaches of legal obligations or professional or ethical duties of the employees involved”.
Victorian supreme court justice Elizabeth Hollingworth delivered a judgment last June that was scathing of Dutton’s failure to disclose a crucial report that could have undermined efforts to impose post-sentence controls on Benbrika, who was convicted of directing a terrorist organisation and other offences and sentenced in 2009 to a minimum of 12 years in prison.
Peter Dutton and the home affairs department have been cleared of wrongdoing over what a judge described as “a serious interference with the administration of justice” in a court case involving Melbourne terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika.
The INSLM referred the matter back to the attorney general’s and home affairs departments, and former federal court judge Alan Robertson SC was tasked with completing an “independent preliminary inquiry” into the matter.
Hollingworth described the handling of the undisclosed report while Dutton was minister for the Australian federal police under the former Coalition government as “a serious interference with the administration of justice”.
