The Legal Aid Commission says it can't afford to represent David Harold Eastman in his latest inquiry on its current budget, and has asked the government for a handout.
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The cost of the inquiry into Eastman's conviction for the murder of assistant police Commissioner Colin Winchester, headed by retired South Australian judge Kevin Duggan, is expected to reach into the millions.
The ACT Supreme Court has heard Legal Aid, with its estimated budget of $11 million last financial year, cannot wear the cost of representing the convicted murderer.
Eastman's legal team says it will need paralegals to help them sort through 30,000 pages of evidence and transcripts.
Attorney-General Simon Corbell has said if the case blows the commission's budget a Treasurer's advance could be made available.
''The inquiry is at a very early stage and any assessment of the cost to Legal Aid of representation for Mr Eastman can only be preliminary,'' a spokesman said.
He noted the commission received $200,000 in the last budget to fund expensive cases such as murder trials - of which several are already set to run next year.
''On the basis that the representations of Mr Eastman exceeded the available funding, additional funding would be provided by the government,'' the spokesman said.
Eastman is currently serving a life-sentence for the shooting murder of Mr Winchester, who was gunned down outside his home in 1989.
A jury found him guilty in 1995 after a lengthy trial, but Eastman has always maintained his innocence.
A clearer picture of how the inquiry is set to run began to emerge yesterday, for the first time since Justice Shane Marshall ruled there was ''fresh doubt'' about Eastman's guilt.
But Eastman's lawyer, Terry O'Donnell, told the judge the inquiry could not get properly underway before the funding issue was addressed.
He said the commission had written to the Justice and Community Safety Directorate asking for more money.
In the meantime the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions has launched a final bid to try and limit the broad-ranging scope of the probe.
The inquiry is based on a 19-ground application filed by Eastman's legal team.
The grounds range from forensic questions and concerns about the man's mental state to the conduct of the police investigation and prosecution.
Director Jon White has written a submission arguing all but one of the grounds have already been thrashed out in earlier appeals or inquiries.
Last week Justice Marshall rejected the same submission and accused the DPP of seeking to ''muddy the waters'' before vowing never to work in the ACT Supreme Court again.
The sole unopposed ground is the emergence of a witness who claims he borrowed Eastman's car to go rabbit shooting, and put a .22 rifle in the boot.
His lawyers hope the evidence could explain the presence of gunshot residue in the boot of their client's car. Justice Duggan has agreed to consider Mr White's arguments, but Mr O'Donnell suggested the ''gate had closed'' and it was too late to narrow the inquiry.
The judge yesterday said independent counsel would be appointed to assist the inquiry, rather than a representative of the DPP.
And Mr O'Donnell told the court he believed much of the evidence could be dealt with through paperwork, with about 15 witnesses needing to be called.
He said many witnesses, including experts, had passed away since the 1995 trial.
The inquiry is unlikely to get underway until next year.
