CLANT condemns Minister’s attack on NT Coroner – Press Release

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

The Criminal Lawyers Association of the Northern Territory (CLANT) is appalled by comments made in Parliament this week by the Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, attacking the integrity and conduct of the NT Coroner.

 

The Minister’s suggestion that the Coroner lacked “humility and bravery” in her findings following the inquest into the deaths of four women is an extraordinary and deeply inappropriate intrusion by a member of the executive into the independent work of the judiciary.

 

This was not fair criticism. It was a personal, politically charged attack on a judicial officer who is unable to defend herself publicly. These remarks represent a profound violation of the principles of judicial independence and the separation of powers which are fundamental to our democracy and enshrined in the Australian Constitution. Judicial officers must be free to perform their duties without fear of reprisal or intimidation from the executive branch of government.

 

To imply that the Coroner sought attention In that she was “more focused on the reveal than the result” is not only false, it is an insult to the seriousness of her work and to the women whose deaths were the subject of the inquest. The suggestion that she lacked “bravery” because she did not adopt a politically convenient narrative about Aboriginal culture is a thinly veiled demand for judicial conformity to government ideology.

 

These comments cannot be dismissed as mere political theatre. They reflect a growing pattern of disrespect from government leaders toward the judiciary. Only days earlier, the Chief Minister dismissed the outcomes of the Kumanjayi Walker Coronial Inquest and foreshadowed legislative changes to curtail the powers of the Coroner. This represents a coordinated political effort to weaken the coronial process and avoid accountability.

 

Let us be clear: Coroners hold governments to account. That is their job. When Ministers attack them for doing so, it is not just disrespectful, it is an attack on the checks and balances that uphold the rule of law. The government’s contempt for these principles should alarm every Territorian.

The people of the Northern Territory deserve leaders who respect the independent role of the judiciary, not ones who seek to silence it.