Lawyer X royal commission will not name wrongdoers

Ms McMurdo said she would not make findings in her final report, due at the end of November, that "any named individuals may have committed criminal offences" out of concern that any future trial could be tainted.

"My primary concerns were that this Commission is exercising administrative and not judicial power. Whether criminal charges should be brought is a matter for the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions," she said.

"Any charges must then be determined in a court on the criminal standard requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt where anything Counsel Assisting or this Commission has said about them is not evidence.

"Public discussion of whether named individuals may have committed specific criminal offences in submissions or in my final report could unfairly prejudice any future trials and could put at risk the presumption of innocence and Charter rights to a fair trial. I was also concerned about natural justice issues."

The documents detail the evidence implicating current and former officers in an alleged conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and the major criminal cases tainted by lawyer Nicola Gobbo's double life as a defence barrister and police informer.

The submissions of counsel assisting Chris Winneke QC run to thousands of pages, with Victoria Police, former chief commissioners Simon Overland and Graham Ashton and some of Australia's most notorious crooks including convicted drug bosses Mr Mokbel and Francesco Madafferi filing submissions in response.

Mokbel trial doubt

In the submissions counsel assisting the commission argued the conduct of Ms Gobbo and Victoria Police contaminated at least three criminal cases involving jailed drug lord Tony Mokbel, substantial enough that "potential for the right of Mr Mokbel to a fair trial to have been interfered with".

"It is submitted that it is open to the commissioner to find that the three cases of Mr Mokbel may have been affected by the conduct of Ms Gobbo as a human source, as well as the conduct of members of Victoria Police in their disclosures about and recruitment, management, and handling of Ms Gobbo as a human source," counsel assisting wrote.

Counsel assisting also found there was evidence that called into question the arrest, conviction and later conversion of a Mokbel drug cook known as "Mr Thomas" into a star prosecution witness due to potential misconduct by Ms Gobbo and Victoria Police.

Mr Thomas' cooperation was central to building cases against numerous Mokbel family members and associates.

The commission was told that "on the evidence" it is possible to find that Mr Overland - at least by February 2006 - knew that Mr Thomas' case could be comprised by Ms Gobbo's working simultaneously as a police informer and as his legal representative.

Potentially affected parties have until 7 September to respond to the release of material.

Counsel assisting also found it was open to the commissioner to find that Mr Ashton, as the then chief commissioner of police, sought to justify potentially corrupt activity by Victoria Police on the basis that "the ends justify the means".

It was also open to find that Mr Ashton sought to avoid Victoria Police taking responsibility for the conduct of its members which was "correctly described by the High Court as atrocious and reprehensible" and "failed to discharge his responsibility to ensure that Victoria Police members act ethically and in scrupulous compliance with the law".