Search warrants, used by the Australian Federal Police to raid the offices of Channel Seven in search of proof the network had made a deal with drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, have been ruled invalid and summarily quashed by the Federal Court.
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On February 18, federal police officers raided the network's offices as well as Seven West's publishing arm, Pacific Magazines, and the company's lawyers.
They seized hundreds of pages of documents allegedly relating to an interview deal with Corby.
Seven and Corby's sister Mercedes sued the AFP over the raids, claiming that they were unlawful.
It emerged in court that the search warrants and accompanying certificates issued by a magistrate before the raids erroneously stated that those being raided were "reasonably suspected" of having committed an offence when this was never in fact the case.
The warrants also stated that those being raided were "suspects" in an ongoing investigation.
Lawyers for the police were forced to accept that neither of these assertions was correct, telling the court that they were the result of a clerical error.
They claimed that documentation accompanying the warrants offered a broader description of those who could be searched as including "entities or other matters" and that this included staff at Seven West and the company's lawyers.
But on Wednesday, Justice Jayne Jagot rejected this claim, finding that the search warrants and accompanying certificates were "materially affected by legal error and should be quashed".
Justice Jagot ordered that the matter return to court in the coming weeks for a hearing on what should be done with the seized documents and the question of legal costs.
Channel Seven welcomed the courts' decision and indicated that it would be pursuing legal costs.
