The judicial inquiry into the 1995 conviction of David Eastman for the 1989 murder of Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester has so far cost ACT taxpayers well over $1 million, though no actual hearings are expected before November.
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The inquiry, set up in August last year under retired South Australian judge Kevin Duggan, has had about six directions hearings, but has yet to take a word of evidence. Nevertheless, staff and other expenses for the inquiry team alone have cost $938,000 (including capital expenses of $100,000). The Department of Justice and Community Services said that Legal Aid Commission costs for Eastman, pictured, are on top of that. ACT taxpayers will ultimately also foot the bill for representation of the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, led by senior counsel. The AFP has a two-person legal team, plus the equivalent of 2.5 lawyers and 3.5 police officers in a taskforce established to defend the AFP's interests, but, strictly, these are being paid for by the Commonwealth.
Liesl Chapman, SC, the South Australian advocate appointed as senior counsel, and other lawyers working with the inquiry, had been paid $337,000 by the end of May, the JACS spokesperson said. Acting Justice Duggan had received $37,000 based on per diem rates for the $400,000 a year which Supreme Court judge is paid.
JACS says it will not disclose how much money is being paid to individual lawyers, because it is personal information and commercially sensitive.
The inquiry has also appointed a number of investigators, consultants and others.
However, neither the inquiry, nor JACS would disclose who they were, what they were doing, or what they were being paid.
Justice Duggan says it would be inappropriate to discuss these matters outside the inquiry.
The figures supplied by JACS suggest that costs will have exceeded $2 million before hearings begin, and, probably, twice that before it is over.
