Queen's Birthday 2022 Honours List: Maria Doogan receives OAM

Mrs Doogan, who retired in 2012, was recognised for her long career in the law in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

"I'm very pleased," she said.

"It is something special."

Mrs Doogan was known as a steely but fair judicial officer.

A former prosecutor, she worked on high-profile cases, including the initial investigation into the Anu Singh murder trial and the trial for the 1991 murder of Christopher Wilder.

Mrs Doogan was appointed a magistrate from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1998 and will be remembered by many Canberrans for the inquest into the devastating 2003 bushfires that killed four.

"When I started work, I started in 1966 in Sydney in the Tax Office and I've worked in the public service all my life," she said.

She transferred to Canberra with the ATO in 1970.

Mrs Doogan studied law while raising three children with her husband Chris and travelling overseas with the Department of Trade.

She was allowed to accelerate her studies and after completing the legal workshop at the Australian National University in 1989, started working with the DPP in Canberra, where she specialised in sexual-assault prosecutions.

Mrs Doogan was appointed a magistrate by the then Liberal ACT government in 1998. In 1999, she was also named the ACT winner of the Telstra Businesswoman of the Year award.

Sitting in the winter sun at the Kingston foreshore last weekend, Mrs Doogan said she had always tried to be efficient and effective, as well as fair.

"I never regretted any decisions I made about sentencing," she said.

"Sentencing is, without a doubt, the most challenging decision that magistrates and judges have to make, because that's what ultimately affects someone's life and future.

"I think I was known as a fairly hard-working magistrate and I tried to do the job with fairness and with compassion and a hope for justice in the end."

Mrs Doogan believed her parents would be proud of her achievements, but was saddened to watch the war in Ukraine unfold, just across the border from where her father grew up in Poland.

"I feel sad for all the refugees who are fleeing to somewhere uncertain," she said.

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