Between a rock and a dark place: McGrail lawyer lectures on inquiry at City Law School

The lawyer who represented Ian McGrail at the Inquiry into the early retirement of the former Police Commissioner has made this the subject of a lecture at City Law School.

In his role as a visiting Professor of Law, Adam Wagner KC spoke of his experience in the inquiry. 

Under the title 'Between a rock and a dark place," he has published the lecture's text on the online platform Substack.

For Adam Wagner KC this was no ordinary inquiry. Highlighting its twists and turns, he states that having acted in nine public inquiries-none of it was normal.

None of the other inquiries, he claims, determined accountability as plainly as Sir Peter Openshaw did, nor had any of them been so damning of a serving public official.

Mr Wagner is sceptical about the the fruits from the inquiry, claiming the Government is suing the Inquiry Chair to essentially quash the main findings.  And, he's not hopeful on the recommended reform of the Police Authority, since he says, it's being 'controlled by a committee, jointly chaired by the Chief Minister- the same person, he says, who was found to have misled the GPA.

On the Public Service Standards and Conflict of Interests Bill, he expresses reservations about whether it will ever be applied to the people who it is really targeted at.

A society, he says, can have the appearance of the rule of law, without it working in practice, claiming that when Gibraltar’s seemingly independent institutions were tested, the checks and balances simply crumbled.

Adam Wagner believes the inquiry did not restore public confidence, and that aside from public and international embarrassment, there do not appear to have been any consequences-No apologies, no resignations, no criminal investigations for misconduct in public office - just officials brazening it out. 

He further believes that while this was an opportunity for reconciliation, the public authorities involved did not take it. Reconciliation, he adds, requires insight and self-awareness, and at a basic level, people need to admit failings.