A top silk has suggested the ACT's outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions could ask a court to set aside the inquiry findings that have ended his career, claiming he was not afforded natural justice.
"I'm appalled. I'm absolutely appalled," Geoffrey Watson SC, a director at the Centre for Public Integrity, said on Monday when asked for his views on the findings being leaked to the media.
Mr Watson made the comments on ABC radio after Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold SC announced his resignation.
The territory's top prosecutor, who is set to formally depart on September 1, revealed he would walk away despite disputing many adverse findings the inquiry has made about him.
Mr Drumgold's conduct was scrutinised by an inquiry that examined how authorities handled the case of Bruce Lehrmann, who denies raping fellow former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins at Parliament House.
Inquiry chairman Walter Sofronoff KC reportedly found Mr Drumgold had knowingly lied to Chief Justice Lucy McCallum during the case against Mr Lehrmann before it was aborted following a mistrial.
Mr Sofronoff also found, among other things, that Mr Drumgold had lost objectivity and "preyed on" the inexperience of a junior prosecutor by having him advance a false claim of privilege over documents.
While the former Queensland judge's 600-page report is yet to be released publicly, its contents have been widely reported after he released it without ACT government approval to selected journalists.
Mr Drumgold criticised this decision on Sunday, saying it had denied him procedural fairness when the government had planned to consider the findings for a month before responding publicly.
On Monday, Mr Watson agreed.
"There's also a chance that he could go to a court now and have it set aside because he wasn't given natural justice," Mr Watson told ABC radio.
ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury has indicated the territory government plans to make "a detailed statement" in response to Mr Sofronoff's report early this week.
