EDITORIAL: If we needed any further proof that Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby is completely out of her depth in her role as the Northern Territory’s first law officer, it came this week during her latest disaster that has led the public to once again question the integrity of its government institutions.

It is time for her to resign or be sacked to restore some modicum of confidence in our beleaguered justice system.

The latest incident saw Boothby publicly commenting on a case involving 24-year-old hit-and-run driver Jake Danby, without disclosing that Danby is her sister’s stepson.

This is a breach of the public’s trust, and a failure to meet the high standards expected of the NT’s first law officer, as the Opposition has rightly pointed out. But it also begs the question, what else is she hiding from the public?

It was also revealed on Friday that Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro knew about Boothby’s connection to the incident since last June – two months out from the election – and helped keep it quiet.

Danby struck two Indigenous men with his car at 80km/h last June in Leanyer, while driving without a valid licence and failing to stop, with one of those men later dying in hospital from a traumatic brain injury.

Danby later texted people about his hit-and-run crime, laughing and bragging about killing the man, who he called an “oxygen thief” and using other racial epithets to describe the men. He also indicated he didn’t want to stop because he didn’t want to be breathalysed.

Other texts show he was nonchalant about the crime in its aftermath and fully aware the police were looking for him.

In one text, he said, “…I ain’t getting jail time. I’m a Danby, we don’t go to jail”.

Which raises all kinds of questions after his prophecy came true, when all the evidence pointed to a lengthy jail term.

The sentence is now being appealed, which the DPP had no choice but to order after the NT Independent revealed the connection to Boothby on Thursday evening.

But Boothby thought it was just fine to keep her relation to Danby a secret from the public and had help in her efforts.

We wouldn’t have even known about this case if the ABC’s Matt Garrick didn’t happen to pop his head into the courtroom on Monday, where it’s understood Danby’s lawyer shuddered upon seeing the journalist. Garrick wrote the first story exposing the facts around Danby’s actions and the judge’s decision to keep him out of jail, which kicked off the public outrage.

Media scrutiny was to be avoided in this case it appears, so the public would be kept in the dark, which sounds remarkably like our current government’s modus operandi.

The other issue here is why Justice Sonia Brownhill heard the matter at all, given she would have undoubtedly known that the Attorney-General – who incidentally recommends to Cabinet the appointment of judges to senior roles, including the Chief Justice – had family members involved in the case.

We’re not suggesting any misconduct on the part of Brownhill, but why didn’t she stand aside from this case and let one of the interstate judges who routinely fly in handle it to be completely removed and not raise suspicions?

There’s also questions about her determination that Danby showed remorse for the crime of killing a man in a hit-and-run, which she determined he had, based on “some insight” Danby provided “the writer of the presentence report”. Whatever evidence of remorse existed was not shared in court.

All the text messages show there was no remorse at all and possibly intent.

There’s still more questions than answers around this curious case, which we’re certain will come out in due course, now that the matter has been made public

But this is not Boothby’s first serious lapse in judgment.

Boothby’s tenure as AG a troubled one

In her 12 months as Attorney-General, Boothby has repeatedly fractured the public’s trust in its justice system – first by arranging a photoshoot with Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb back in early January at the Darwin Local Court to celebrate her government’s tough-on-crime legislation, that had legal observers scratching their heads and asking if she understood the separation of powers and the need for the courts to be seen as independent from government.

Then she grew more political, announcing the appointment of the Chief Minister’s mate Steve Ledek as a local court judge, but showed her characteristic ignorance when asked about the friendship between Ledek, Lia and Sam Burke.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said.

That ill-thought out response unwittingly threw her boss in the fire by seemingly revealing that Lia did not declare a conflict of interest when Cabinet discussed appointing Ledek as a judge. Or if she did declare it, Boothby wasn’t paying attention. Either way, not a good look for the NT’s first law officer.

The same day, Boothby also revealed she was unaware her department’s director of litigation was appointed Acting Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, because why should she know what is going on with senior figures in the Department of Attorney-General and Justice?

There’s more.

In all her wisdom and vast legal knowledge, she overruled an independent panel’s pick for director of Legal Aid NT in May and appointed another politically-aligned mate to the job who did not have the requisite qualifications, leading to most of the board resigning in protest.

And there’s also the matter of the government attempting to cover-up a judge’s sexual harassment of an associate, that remains unresolved.

Boothby also attacked the CEO of NAAJA earlier this year for raising legitimate concerns about the inhumane conditions inside the Palmerston watch house, which continues unaddressed.

And then there’s the failure to investigate Lloyd Babb for hiring his family members for unadvertised jobs in his office.

We haven’t even mentioned the Darwin Waterfront debacle that she is overseeing as the responsible minister, refusing to order an independent investigation into serious allegations around the misuse of taxpayer money, mismanaged conflicts of interest, mysterious executive appointments and rampant cronyism at the taxpayer-funded corporation, all while keeping an internal report she ordered into the matter secret.

She also subverted the entire Public Accounts Committee process back in June, when she stated it would clear the Waterfront executives of wrongdoing before the hearing even took place – another example of her knack for saying the quiet part out loud.

Chief Minister knew about Boothby’s relation to Danby ahead of election and kept quiet

Boothby’s move to comment publicly on the Danby matter without disclosing her conflict of interest was exceptional, even for her. When asked by the NT Independent on Thursday why she did not disclose it, her office sent lines that failed to acknowledge what she had done. It led us to ask in a follow-up email: “Sorry, but how do you guys not know [the seriousness of] this?”

Then on Friday, her office sent different lines to different media outlets about the issue, including this one to The Australian:

“I have never attempted to hide the fact that the driver was an extended family member,” Boothby said.

Except for that time on Thursday when she was asked publicly at a press conference, in front of television cameras, about the Danby case and proceeded to comment on it instead of disclosing that Danby was her sister’s stepson.

Then her office told The Australian that Boothby disclosed the hit-and-run incident to Lia when it occurred in June of last year – two months before the election. And yet, nobody said anything publicly at the time. Not before the election and not after Danby was sentenced on Monday, not until the NT Independent revealed it this week.

Lia was complicit in keeping this out of the public eye ahead of the election and then installed Boothby as Attorney-General upon coming into office. It is always best in politics to front-foot a scandal, but these two appeared not to have appreciated that transparency is paramount.

Boothby has long been Lia Finocchiaro’s Useful Idiot, a figurehead who has no idea what’s actually going on in her own portfolios and seemingly not curious enough to find out, who will blindly do the bidding of her boss and the party without asking questions or understanding the consequences.

While Lia has used her to great effect to further her own ends – without Boothby growing suspicious – Boothby has now become a walking, talking monument to, and daily reminder of, how dangerously dysfunctional, incompetent and misguided this CLP Government is.

We have no problem with Marie-Clare Boothby, the person, who is a good and decent individual by all accounts and well-liked. But Marie-Clare Boothby, the Attorney-General, needs to go. She should show that she has at least learned something over the past year by resigning to restore the public’s confidence.