The Walter Sofronoff inquiry tells us it's time for real reform

The ACT government's initial decision to delay the public release of the report of its Sofronoff Board of Inquiry into the criminal justice system until the end of the month while awaiting a "proper cabinet process" was a textbook example of how not to manage a public inquiry and turn it into a major scandal.

Certainly, under the ACT Inquiries Act, Chief Minister Andrew Barr was entitled to decide when to release an inquiry report and to explain any delays.

Nevertheless, the usual practice across Australia is for public inquiry reports into scandals and allegations of maladministration to be released almost immediately.

After all, the essence of inquiries is their public proceedings: to hear witnesses give evidence, observe a rigorous process of cross-examination and then to produce a report with sound recommendations released to the whole community.

Of course, governments should consider reports carefully, but rightly or wrongly, delays in releasing public inquiry reports, no matter how justified, can be misconstrued by the public as a government buying time to develop blame minimisation and shifting strategies to get themselves "off the hook".

Public inquiries make a refreshing contrast to executive government decision making, so often behind closed doors, and tailored consultancy reports.

Even in Queensland the National Party government released the famous Fitzgerald Report into corruption as soon as it was presented to then premier Mike Ahern, despite its damaging findings which he accepted unequivocally, "lock, stock and barrel". No delay would have been tolerated by the public.

Similarly, no delay should have been contemplated by the ACT government.

Alert governments have resolved this problem and responded quickly to an inquiry report by closely monitoring its proceedings and having an implementation team at the ready.

Of course, the chair's pre-emptive actions in sending embargoed copies of the report to selected media outlets before submitting it to government, as is normal practice, caused the government to recant and to release the report on Monday.

This made the government appear reactive - succumbing to media pressure, rather than being committed to tackling the issue honestly.

Unsurprisingly, it also unleashed, with some justification, the government's wrath on the chair. His actions unintentionally distracted attention from the most important issue - the report and its recommendations - and threatened to undermine the integrity of the whole public inquiry process.

It was a bad look.

Aside from the issues concerning the performance of particular ACT government officials which Sofronoff was required to review, there are wider issues of governance that need to be tackled if trust is to be restored in the ACT's system of justice.

Foremost of these is to resolve who is responsible for the administration of justice in the ACT?

Complicating this is that a number of agencies like the Director of Public Prosecutions, although part of ACT government, are also part of the legal system separate from and independent of direct government control on a day-to-day basis. Also, the Australian Federal Police, a key subject of the inquiry's terms of reference, are a federal, not ACT government, agency.

One possible reform, although not in the Sofronoff report, might be for future senior appointments like that of Director of Public Prosecutions to involve more bipartisan participation in the selection processes than presently occurs. It might help to end claims of politicisation. Some states adopt such a procedure for appointing corruption watchdog commissioners.

It could be asked: why was no one in ACT government overseeing its justice system more closely? Surely someone in authority should have known. Was ministerial oversight lacking?

Of course, the purpose of boards of inquiry with their statutory coercive investigatory powers is to probe, cross-examine, and expose what was not fully known previously. And the role of ministers is to act, as they see appropriate on those inquiry recommendations.

The real measure of integrity now for the ACT government is how effectively it implements all those recommendations that it has accepted. Accepting recommendations is easy but putting them into action effectively is not always the same thing.

The Daniel Andrews Victorian government appointed a royal commission into the Management of Police Informants. Its recommendations were accepted. A separate agency, investigator and monitoring process were established to implement the recommendations, but it came unstuck because of disagreements between key agencies and individuals and the whole process has now been closed down.

Unless the ACT government acts firmly and effectively on the Sofronoff findings along with other remedial measures, trust in its administration of justice will remain under a cloud.