‘Victorian government failed in its witch-hunt against Cardinal George Pell’
Cardinal George Pell was a target because he supported and represented everything the Victorian state government and its Premier abhors — religion, traditional marriage, conservative culture and the monarchy, Piers Akerman writes.
Opinion
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The Victorian state government and Premier Daniel Andrews must be held to account for the grotesque manner in which they have acted to undermine legal principles in their quest to overturn the long-established bedrocks of society.
Cardinal George Pell was their target because he supported and represented everything the Andrews government abhors — religion, traditional marriage, conservative culture, the monarchy and former prime minister John Howard.
However, the Victorian justice system and those who are unfortunately subjected to it are the victims.
The High Court’s total repudiation of the Victorian Appellate Court’s decision to keep Cardinal George Pell in prison has now stripped the socialist government of its cover.
In 2015, the Andrews government passed the Jury Directions Act which in Section 39, paragraphs 1-3, is not only contradictory but falls over backwards to give the testimony of accusers greater weight than that of their accused. The High Court Justices referred to this flaw in their 44-page unanimous 7-0 judgment.
Under the Act the judge is instructed not to suggest to the jury that the “victim’s evidence … be scrutinised with great care”.
This bizarre legislation was echoed by Premier Andrews in a dismissive statement following the High Court decision.
The Premier contemptuously said: “I make no comment about today’s High Court decision. But I have a message for every single victim and survivor of child sex abuse: I see you. I hear you. I believe you.”
Premier Andrews is playing politics and bowing before his Left-wing supporters in the hard-core, inner-urban electorates and had it not been for this vast overreach by the Victorian Police and the Victorian Court system he would have got away with perpetrating a manifestly gross injustice, let alone false imprisonment of a good man.
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The High Court lashed the majority of the Victorian Appellate court (Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and President of the Appeals Court Chris Maxwell) over their failure to uphold Cardinal Pell’s appeal against his conviction on five charges of sexual assault involving two boys in 1996 and 1997.
The Court found that the opinion of Justice Mark Weinberg, the sole dissenter on the Victorian Appellate bench, was correct. The Victorian justice system failed.
There has been a torrent of ill-informed comment on the internet, as one would expect, and largely it is the baying of the same ignorant mob that cheered the Victorian police witch-hunt against the Cardinal and lauded the manner in which he was hauled in handcuffs daily to his farcical trial.
The ABC ran execrable, biased and bigoted commentary on the Pell matter up to and after the decision routinely violating its charter.
Other Left-wing media followed, not least the New York Times.
The mob that delights in Premier Andrews’ antics revels in its own ignorance. Social media is littered with boasts from users who claim not to need to read the court documents to determine guilt or innocence.
The mob doesn’t understand that the High Court was ruling not on whether Cardinal Pell committed any offences but on the conduct of the Victorian Appellate Court and it found that the two judges in the majority erred in ignoring the obvious grounds for reasonable doubt.
The behaviour of the Victorian Police is beyond despicable. The police showed the same lack of integrity they displayed when they put Lawyer X on their payroll breaching the entire basis of lawyer-client confidentiality.
Victoria’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Kerri Judd, must also be asked why she chose to prosecute such a glaringly weak case.
As I wrote last March 3, a year ago, when the Cardinal was wrongfully convicted: “It is now apparent that all Australians are required as a matter of course to give deference to self-proclaimed victims of sexual abuse, proven or not.”
Victoria’s Opposition leader Michael O’Brien has now stepped up, saying: “The unanimous High Court verdict in the Pell case is an embarrassment to Victoria’s legal system. How could police, prosecutors and judges have got it so wrong for so long?
“This comes on the heels of the unanimous High Court decision in the Lawyer X case which called out “reprehensible conduct” in Victorian prosecutions. Daniel Andrews wants to ignore the High Court’s clear message — Victoria’s legal system needs to be cleaned up.”