Reposted with permission from BlakandBlack.

Orwell was prescient. Established as the seat of the Commonwealth in 1910, legal accountability in the Australian Capital Territory was originally the responsibility of the New South Wales Supreme Court. Just five years after Orwell’s seminal “1984”, the Territory became self-governing and with it was established an independent legal system, infrastructure and personnel. At a mere 35 years old, the ACT displays the pretty façade of a progressive rural capital. The reality is that its leaders and public service are wracked by corruption and discrimination from the Chief Minister’s own directorate to the law enforcement bodies that underpin the very premise upon which the Territory was established – the rule of law.

The politically motivated and racially biased prosecution of Bakchos in 2017 can leave no-one doubting that the region is corrupt. In 2013, under freedom of information, Bakchos sought a copy of a public interest disclosure submitted by the then Indigenous Commissioner for ACT Revenue in 2003 to the ACT Chief Minister. Bakchos was advised that no such correspondence existed. With evidence to the contrary, he made an application to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) seeking a direction that would require the government to disgorge the document. Rather disappointingly, the Tribunal declared that in the face of a denial by CMTEDD that it held the document, the Tribunal itself was powerless to make any orders. An affidavit prepared for the Tribunal by lawyers acting for Bakchos became redundant and the file was closed … or so it seemed.

In 2015, Bakchos was charged with sixteen criminal offences all relating to fraud, based entirely upon an affidavit supposedly held on file by the ACAT. The affidavit prepared by Bakchos’ lawyers had been reviewed by two independent solicitors and a barrister before being submitted to the ACAT. That document upon which he was charged contained gross grammatical errors, legal argument which would never be included in an affidavit of that nature, and myriad other drafting and assembly errors. More concerningly, the document used to lay the charges was a copy – the original could not be found. The ACAT had become the ACT Government’s very own Ministry of Truth, making the original affidavit disappear and feeding a misrepresentation down the pipes of lies to the victim of this gross breach of legal protection and trust.

In March 2017, Bakchos faced the ACT Supreme Court. In a two week trial, that same Ministry of Truth was found to have made its registrar disappear into thin air, replacing them with another who had no knowledge of the file, so could not be cross examined about what had happened to the original affidavit. The original of the affidavit could not be presented to the court. Combined with witnesses who were unable to substantiate their claims, including former Auditor-General Tu Pham who claimed to have a better memory in 2017 than she did in 2003, on events that had occurred in 2002. Her cross examination was rendered more difficult as she claimed not to speak fluent English. The jury accepted that Bakchos had been fitted up and was not guilty on all charges.

One would expect that an investigation of what happened to the ACAT file would follow, that heads would roll. But nothing. Not a whisper, not a sound. As recently as late 2023, Bakchos has sought an explanation from the ACAT as to what happened to his file. Receiving nought but the sound of cicadas in reply, Bakchos wrote to the ACT Attorney General, Shane Rattenbury on 14 March 2024, exactly seven years to the day after the commencement of his ACT Supreme court hearing. As with the ACAT, he has had no reply and there can be only one explanation. The ACAT and the Justice and Community Safety Directorate, for which the Attorney General is responsible, is comfortable with the falsification and re-writing of legal and historical records. This is Orwell’s very premise of the Ministry of Truth – a government approved, sanitised lie that protects the leadership from accountability.

It is not enough that a victim can overcome such falsified charges in court. It is not enough that those responsible for the fit-up should be able to walk away without a care to continue with their lives when Bakchos’ life and that of his family have been so significantly damaged. It is not enough that there is no penalty to the malicious individuals or corporation that premeditated such a gross violation of the rule of law. It is certainly not enough that an Attorney General ignores a victim wronged by the very government for which he oversees justice within the Territory.

This racist, politically motivated persecution by the ACT Government can only be finished when the harms inflicted are acknowledged, when the perpetrators are held to account. More fundamentally, an organisational review of integrity and ethics within the ACT Government is urgently required. Until that happens and until those persecuting Bakchos and his family are held to account, the ACT will remain nothing more than a wannabe paradise papering over its human rights abuses with the help of its dichotomous Ministries.