Jon Stanhope has graciously decided not to appeal the Supreme Court’s decision to disallow the government’s application to have Coroner Maria Doogan disqualified from the bushfire inquest.
In this (rather short) press release, Stanhope says, “I look forward to the speedy resumption of the inquest and the finalisation of the Coroner’s hearing.â€
He said his reason for abandoning any thoughts of appeal is that it would be a disservice to the Canberra community to draw out the inquest any longer. However, he does emphasise that this is only a decision on the ACT’s part and that any of the other individual plaintiffs could pursue an appeal if they wanted to.