When Mike Baird sits down with the state's anti-corruption chief, Megan Latham, next week, the stakes will be equally high for each.

On the agenda will be whether  the Premier agrees to Latham's request that he legislate to give the Independent Commission Against Corruption investigative powers it believed it had until the High Court disagreed a week ago.

For Latham, the discussion may determine her immediate future as commissioner. Likewise, the conversation will help guide Baird in making what may prove one of the most important decisions as Premier.

The court's declaration was that ICAC didn't have the power to investigate crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen over allegations she advised her son's girlfriend to feign chest pains to avoid being breathalysed after a car accident.

It said ICAC has no power to investigate private citizens who may deceive public servants who themselves may not act corruptly – for example, business people colluding to rig a public tender.

The ICAC's position is that if Baird doesn't legislate to fix this it will affect its ability to do its job properly.

It also warned subjects of previous corruption findings would seek to have them overturned, as occurred this week when ICAC said it would back down over the action by a group of businessmen to have a finding of corrupt conduct against them in relation to an Obeid family coal tenement overturned.

What position Baird will take into the meeting is less clear. Like most NSW premiers he has been, in private and in public, an avowed supporter of ICAC and its work.

Like some of his Labor predecessors, the fact that a parade of his own former MPs has done the walk of shame into ICAC has helped shape that view.

But the High Court decision has unleashed waves of pent-up resentment against ICAC, mostly from the conservative side of politics, apparently in response to its recent high-profile investigations involving Liberal figures such as Senator Arthur Sinodinos.

So Baird is also being pressured by a group of hyper-partisan commentators to nobble ICAC as they cast it as an out-of-control star chamber that is a direct threat to personal freedom.

The primary case exhibited by those who want to narrow ICAC's powers is that its "architect" – then premier Nick Greiner's cabinet secretary Gary Sturgess – never envisaged it being able to investigate private citizens in this way.

But this is a strange argument, given the number of times it has done just that over the past three decades with barely a whimper of protest.

Critics argue these matters can be captured by the police. But this ignores the fact that ICAC is better placed to do so as a dedicated agency with superior investigative powers.

This week, former premier Morris Iemma described these investigations as ICAC's "bread and butter".

Historically, the main complaint about ICAC has been its tendency to go after politicians on relatively minor matters.

A good example was the outrage from within the ALP in 2010 when then Drummoyne MP Angela D'Amore was found corrupt for claiming $4500 in entitlements for two staff.

This aspect of ICAC's powers has also come under renewed attack in the wake of the High Court decision on Cunneen. Its critics say it should stick to pursuing serious system corruption, which the Cunneen matter clearly was not.

Interestingly, at the time Greiner defended ICAC. "I think it's a bit easy to say that they shouldn't investigate small things," he said of the criticism over the D'Amore finding.

"It's about trying to change culture and attitude. It's not whether this is a venal or mortal sin."

Yet on Thursday he appeared to label ICAC's decision to pursue Cunneen as "stupid", demonstrating how nuanced the argument over ICAC's powers can get.

Baird faces an unenviable choice. If he backs ICAC's request, he will infuriate many on his own side of politics.

But if he rejects it, he will instantly be at odds with the head of the state's foremost anti-corruption body.

Latham's resignation, in protest, could conceivably follow and any successor would lead a much-diminished organisation.

That in turn could spell disaster for the anti-corruption regime in NSW, a state which has repeatedly proved it needs a robust system more than most.