So much for Rudd's 'full judicial inquiry'

“… I have received assurances from each of the relevant government agencies that they will fully co-operate with the Inquiry.”

This promised co-operation would allow Mr Clarke to provide an open Inquiry, subject to narrowly defined exceptions.

By July 9, 2008, things were not rosy and it appeared that Mr Clarke was not calling the shots: somebody or something was making Mr Clarke’s openness very difficult. He said:

“While the documents have, in the main, been delivered to the Inquiry, gaining access to the documents has involved a protracted period of negotiation. The delivery of the documents has, however, been on a confidential basis and the Inquiry has not been given authority to publish those which are classified.”

And so Mr Clarke has been forced to abandon an open Inquiry. The final word appears to be that Dr Haneef's lawyers and the general public will receive no information as to the evidence before the Inquiry until it is too late.

In our submissions, we drew upon a revealing fossil record (obtained mainly through FOI processes) and were able, with some guesswork, to cobble together to raise important issues that must be answered by agencies, officials and politicians. With very few resources, and little time allowed by the Inquiry’s guidelines, we put together 125 pages of analysis.

Submissions from agencies such as ASIO, the CDPP and the Queensland Police Service have confirmed many of our guesses and filled in some of the knowledge gaps. Though it has lodged a submission, the AFP maintains (at time of writing) that national security considerations prevent it from allowing one sentence of its submission be published by Mr Clarke.

However, in making final submissions on behalf of Dr Haneef, we will not have the benefit of knowing what questions were asked of witnesses nor what answers they gave. We will have no further documents apart from those we are continuing to seek and obtain by FOI processes.

As a result, we will be able to provide only limited assistance to Mr Clarke as to how or why Dr Haneef was subjected to the indignities he experienced over 26 days in July 2007.

Such a set of circumstances does not constitute Mr Rudd’s “full judicial Inquiry”.

Recent developments

A letter we received from the AFP’s lawyers on July 4, 2008 revealed, at the request of counsel assisting the Clarke Inquiry, five transcripts of interviews between Dr Haneef and the investigating police officers. Dr Haneef's lawyers had never been told of these transcripts. In fact, the AFP had written to them in September 2007, saying: “… the AFP has complied with its obligations … and to this end your firm has been given copies of all the audio records of interviews … as well as the associated transcripts”.

Obviously, they hadn’t complied with their obligations at all.