Networked Knowledge Media Reports Networked Knowledge Videos Homepage Networked Knowledge Henry Keogh Homepage Networked Knowledge Dr Manock Homepage 27 June 2018 Today Tonight (Adelaide) Chief Justice Kourakis and Freedom of Information 5:30 mins. Link to video of this program Rosanna Mangiarelli (presenter): Well after 16 years of a government notorious for keeping secrets, blocking freedom of information requests, leaving thousands of questions asked in parliament unanswered, and even choking off access to court records the election brought the possibility for change. But as Graham Archer reports it appears that in this regard the deck chairs have only been moved. Vicky Chapman, Shadow Attorney-General file tape: My question is to the Attorney-General. Why was the report dated 22 November 2004 of Professor Vernon-Roberts not disclosed to Henry Keogh’s legal representatives until the fifth of December 2013? Graham Archer reporter: This is our Attorney-General Vicky Chapman while in opposition pushing for government transparency again and again. Vicky Chapman, Shadow Attorney-General file tape: Has the Attorney spoken to the Solicitor-General Martin Hinton on the question of why the report dated 22 November 2004 of Professor Vernon-Roberts was not disclosed to Henry Keogh’s legal representatives for nearly ten years? Graham Archer: The report in question from the State’s top pathologist was commissioned in 2004 by the former Solicitor-General, now Chief Justice, Chris Kourakis, while preparing his advice to the Rann government over Henry Keogh’s request for a judicial review of his case. Kevin Foley Acting Attorney-General file tape: After considering the report of the Solicitor- General I have formed the opinion that it did not disclose any arguable basis on which the Supreme Court could find that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Nor does it disclose any reason to doubt Mr Keogh’s guilt of the murder in 1994 of Anna-Jane Cheney. Graham Archer: In 2006 the government used Kourakis’s advice to deny Keogh the right to a fair trial. Kevin Foley Acting Attorney-General file tape: The people of South Australia can be comforted in the knowledge that a two and a half year exhaustive examination by the Solicitor-General, one of the most senior legal officers of this state, has concluded that there is no doubt in his mind as to the guilt of Henry Keogh. Graham Archer: No doubt we were told. What we weren’t told was of the existence of the Vernon-Roberts’ report and therefore his view that the death of Anna-Jane Cheney was probably an accident, not murder. Hence Vicky Chapman’s questions to John Rau about why all ohis was kept secret for almost a decade. Scorn was all she got. The Speaker in Parliament, Michael Atkinson file tape: The Deputy Premier. The Attorney-General, John Rau in parliament, file tape: Yes, that question reminds me Mr Speaker of two other questions, one I frequently hear coming from the lips of Mr Archer I think his name is and another was a question of almost exactly the same tone and which was asked of me a little while ago, I have nothing further to add. Graham Archer: But there was something else Mr Kourakis didn’t do. The report recommended a simple way to test the validity of the forensic evidence crucial to Keogh’s conviction. That test was not undertaken. Yet when Mr Kourakis became a Supreme Court judge he was still telling the world of his certainty of Henry Keogh’s guilt. Richard Fidler, Conversations, ABC radio, 4 April 2012 with Chris Kourakis QC Supreme Court Judge: Fidler – he was hoping that you would recommend the Attorney-General in South Australia would overturn his conviction were you his last chance of being set free? Kourakis – well, in a sense yes, because he had exhausted his legal appeals Fidler – so your advice was then not to intervene to the Attorney-General – Kourakis – that’s right, that’s right. Graham Archer: To clear all this up we applied to see Mr Kourakis’s advice through freedom of information. So far, its taken over two years. Then, last year, the State Ombudsman found it was in the public interest to release the advice. But before the documents were handed over, the government appealed. As the election neared, Vicky Chapman offered her continued support for our efforts to have the documents released. Memo from Vicky Chapman, Shadow Attorney-General Friday 1 December 2017: Hi Graham, Yes it is a lonely and costly battle to get FOI documents. Happy to condemn (sic) this continued secrecy at the expense of taxpayers. Graham Archer: So, in March, when she became the Attorney-General, she had the power to honour her commitment. Vicky Chapman, file tape, having been installed as the new Attorney-General: Pretty fantastic, Reporter - a long time coming, Chapman – a long time coming but we’ll step up. Graham Archer: .. uphold the Ombudsman’s finding, end the secrecy, and release the advice. So what did Vicky Chapman do? She slammed the door in our face. She claimed a conflict of interest and passed the buck to her new department CEO Carolyn Mellor. And here’s Carolyn Mellor, a former prosecutor with the DPP but also for a time the Acting Head of the AGs department under John Rau, the very man we’d been fighting and who’d brushed off Chapman’s questions in Parliament. And no surprise. We’re now condemned to the same old battle, this time under the new Liberal flag forcing us to fight the government through the Supreme Court, expending those same taxpayer funds, your funds, to keep the same old secrets. The secrets Vicky Chapman promised she’d help expose. Makes you wonder why you bother to vote. Fortunately, there is still a television program that’s willing to pay the price to pursue the truth. 25 December 2017 – Determination of the Ombudsman that the reasons for the decision of the Solicitor-General in 2006 regarding the conviction of Henry Keogh be released. .