Dear Ministry of Justice,

In the Ministry’s response of 14 June 2017 to my request for information, Jeff Orr stated that the Ministry's record keeping practices “were robust in 2001 and remain so today”.

What role (if any) did Mr Orr have with the Justice Ministry in 2001, and did his role include auditing the record-keeping practices of senior officials such as Val Sim or Michael Petherick? Who (if anyone) did Mr Orr communicate with to enable him to state that the Ministry's record keeping practices were robust in 2001?

Please provide a copy of the policy from 2001 that allowed senior officials within the Ministry to hold high level discussions about a possible miscarriage of justice without having to create a record of those discussions.

The Ministry’s policy on conflicts of interest says that they “need to be identified and managed carefully in order to maintain public trust and confidence in the justice system”. In regards to the Ministerial Inquiry into the Peter Ellis case, the Ministry is aware that lawyer Wendy Ball had previously informed Dr Louise Sas, who provided her opinion to that inquiry, that Peter Ellis was widely regarded as a “disgusting paedophile”. Sas learnt from Ball that the "effects of [media coverage of the case] on the children abused by Ellis is (sic) far reaching and devastating".

Please provide a copy of information about conflicts of interest that was provided to the parties involved with the Ministerial Inquiry.

According to records held by the Ministry, what are the benefits, or potential benefits, of establishing a Criminal Cases Review Commission?

Yours faithfully,

Ross Francis