The judge who granted the ICAC search warrants for newspapers and journalists' homes was troubled by the application and well aware of the repercussions on freedom of the press, according to yesterday's judgment.
Mr Justice William Stone was 'well aware of the importance of interposing himself between the legitimate desires of the ICAC to pursue its investigation and society's equally legitimate requirement to ensure the freedom of the press' and conducted 'a robust and lengthy hearing'.
According to Mr Justice Michael Hartmann's judgment, the Independent Commission Against Corruption on July 23 made an ex parte application to the Court of First Instance for 14 search warrants to enable officers to enter, search and seize materials from newspaper offices and journalists' homes.
A 13-page affidavit was presented in support of the application. Mr Justice Hartmann described the document as 'painstaking in its detail'.
The ICAC's lawyer told Mr Justice Stone that since the journalists were suspected of having committed serious criminal offences, it was 'not prudent to give notice that journalistic material was being sought from them' because the material could be destroyed.
The lawyer also told Mr Justice Stone they were not suggesting the newspapers themselves had been knowingly complicit in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, but that the press had been 'unwittingly used' to leak the name of a witness under the witness protection programme.