A Heathcote barrister investigated by the corruption watchdog for giving false evidence and "judge-shopping" has lost an appeal against his jail sentence for perverting the course of justice.
John Peter Hart, pleaded guilty in 2014 to perverting the course of justice and was sentenced to a minimum of one year and 10 months in prison, expiring on June 21.
It followed an Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry which found Hart gave false evidence about clients' addresses to have cases transferred to courts where he regarded the magistrate as being "lenient".
"What was done was a form of 'judge shopping' which has the potential ... to completely undermine the efficient, orderly and transparent administration of justice," the ICAC said in its report in March 2010.
Hart was caught in secretly recorded phone calls telling a client he would have a case transferred to Camden Local Court, adding: "I've obviously got to check that the right bloke's at Camden. So leave that with me."
But at a hearing in March this year Hart asked the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal to reduce his sentence on the basis that the ICAC had acted outside its powers in investigating him.
He pointed to the High Court decision in Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen's battle with the corruption watchdog, which narrowed the scope of the commission's powers as they had previously been understood.
The court found in April last year that Ms Cunneen could not be investigated by the ICAC over allegations she perverted the course of justice because the conduct in question did not meet the definition of "corrupt conduct". However, some examples of perverting the course of justice may fall within the definition.
Ms Cunneen vigorously denied the allegations and the NSW Solicitor-General subsequently advised that criminal charges should not be laid against the prosecutor.
Hart said that as a result of the Cunneen decision the inquiry which led to criminal charges against him was "illegal" and he had pleaded guilty to an offence when the Crown had "no lawfully obtained evidence to rely on to charge him".
But the Court of Criminal Appeal said "it was only when the High Court decided [the Cunneen case] that the limitations on the powers of ICAC were identified".
"There was no impropriety in what led to [Hart's] admissions and pleas," said Justice David Davies, with whom Justices Clifton Hoeben and Ian Harrison agreed.
The court added that urgent laws passed by the NSW Parliament in the wake of the Cunneen decision had retrospectively validated past actions of the ICAC that might otherwise have fallen outside its powers.
"The result is that anything done by the commission that led to the investigation and the subsequent admissions and plea of guilty by [Hart] is taken to be validly done," the court said.
