A board of inquiry into the conduct of police and prosecutors in the case against former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, will be led by Walter Sofronoff, who was formerly Queensland's solicitor-general and headed up the state's court of appeal.
The inquiry was announced last year after the ACT's Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shane Drumgold, claimed that police pressured him to abandon the rape trial.
Mr Lehrmann had been accused of raping his then-colleague Brittany Higgins in an office at Parliament House in 2019.
His trial was aborted after misconduct by a juror and, although a retrial was originally scheduled to begin February 20, the retrial was abandoned by Mr Drumgold last year, amid fears any trial would have adversely affected Ms Higgins's health.
Mr Lehrmann has maintained his innocence and there have been no findings against him.
In the letter Mr Drumgold sent to the ACT's Chief Police Officer, Neil Gaughan, just days before the government announced an inquiry, the territory's top prosecutor complained of "blatant misrepresentations" and "cherry-picked" summaries of evidence by officers, as he alleged police pressured him not to charge Mr Lehrmann on a number of occasions.
He said there was also an effort to press him not to pursue a retrial.
In December, the ACT government announced it would hold a board of inquiry – the ACT equivalent of a royal commission — into the roles played by the criminal justice agencies.
At the time, Chief Minister Andrew Barr described the allegations as "serious", saying it was crucial to ensure those involved had pursued their duties with "appropriate rigour, impartiality and independence".
According to the terms of reference, released today, the inquiry will investigate whether there was any wrongdoing by police or the DPP.
It will also probe the circumstances around the public release of Mr Drumgold's letter to the ACT's top police officer, and the appropriateness of ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates supporting Ms Higgins during the trial.
Mr Sofronoff will need to deliver his findings on these issues to Mr Barr by June 30.
In announcing Mr Sofronoff would head up the inquiry, the government recognised his previous experience with inquiries, including having led the Grantham Floods Commission of Inquiry in 2016.
Mr Sofronoff retired as solicitor-general for Queensland in 2014, after five years.
And in May last year, he stepped down as president of the Queensland Court of Appeal.
