Andrew Coyne: Prosecution of Mark Norman is over but questions the affair raised remain
Well, isn’t that nice? The Crown has stayed the charge of breach trust against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, on the grounds that there was no reasonable chance of conviction.
Except … that doesn’t really answer all of the questions raised by this affair. In fact, it doesn’t really answer any of them.
Henein, who now expresses such confidence in the independence of prosecutors, was preparing to argue that, indeed, there was a good deal of political interference in the prosecution, whether directly from the Prime Minister’s Office or indirectly, via the Privy Council Office. A motion to dismiss the case on such grounds was to be argued later this spring, before it even went to trial.
Norman’s lawyers found their requests for documents, which it is obligatory for the Crown to release under the rules of disclosure, routinely stonewalled. Among them was a 60-page memo on the case from the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, to the prime minister — an unusual level of interest in a matter in which both deny having had any involvement.
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