The legal team representing the NSW corruption watchdog has been chastised for the "scrappy" presentation of its High Court case against leading crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption is challenging an appeal court decision that it does not have the authority to proceed with an inquiry into allegations Ms Cunneen attempted to pervert the course of justice.
The hearing before five justices began in Canberra on Wednesday.
Chief Justice Robert French expressed frustration with ICAC's legal team after it was unable to provide copies of the initial ICAC Act of 1988, later amendments and a NSW government response to a 2005 review of the commission.
"I don't think I've ever experienced this kind of scrappy hand-up before," Justice French told the court.
Senior counsel Jeremy Kirk apologised and promised to obtain the documents.
Ms Cunneen is accused of advising her son Stephen Wyllie's girlfriend Sophia Tilley to fake chest pains at the scene of a May 2014 car crash to try to avoid a police breath test.
She describes the accusations as malicious, arguing the ICAC acted beyond its jurisdiction and there was no suggestion the allegations involved her conduct as a crown prosecutor.
Mr Kirk argued corruption could take a wide range of forms.
"To be corruption it need not involve public officials, but it can affect them," he told the court.
Mr Kirk argued corrupt conduct was any that could, or did, adversely affect the honest and impartial exercise of official functions by any public official.
Corruption is not defined in the ICAC Act.
David Jackson QC, appearing for Ms Cunneen, argued the ICAC was not a general crime commission and the conduct could be investigated by another body such as NSW Police.
The case has broader implications for other ICAC investigations, including those already concluded.
The commission has been forced to defer reports into operations Credo and Spicer.
The first involves corruption allegations involving the Eddie Obeid-linked Australian Water Holdings and the latter relates to a political donation scandal involving the NSW Liberal Party.
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