This was published 6 years ago
Opinion
Long overdue laws will empower child sexual abuse survivors
Ben Schneiders
Investigative ReporterEDITOR'S NOTE: The High Court overturned Cardinal George Pell's conviction for historic child sex offences in a judgment handed down April 7, 2020. In a unanimous decision all seven High Court judges found Victoria's Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell's conviction It found the evidence could not support a guilty verdict.
The pain of being raped or sexually abused as a child by a member of the clergy is forever wrought on the souls of survivors.
For many it is a daily struggle just to get by, their nights claimed by torment dating back decades.
Some are broken entirely, many have died early, their deaths often stemming from that abuse.
No single piece of legislation can rectify the crimes committed against children in Australia’s religious institutions.
But the new draft laws proposed by Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula are important in giving more power to survivors.
They seek to put an end to the so-called Ellis defence, the legal precedent established in NSW in 2007 which ruled that, legally, the Catholic church did not exist, as its vast assets were held inside a special trust.
It is named after John Ellis, the former altar boy who launched legal action against the Archdiocese of Sydney for compensation after being abused by a priest in the 1970s.
John Ellis is a survivor of child sexual abuse by a priest. He fought and lost a famous court case against the Catholic Church for compensation in NSW.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The Ellis defence has frustrated claims for compensation and undoubtedly saved the Catholic church vast amounts of money over the years.
It has been a cruel legal tactic.
The courage it takes an abuse survivor to come forward is wrenching enough. That they have then been told by lawyers for the church in which they were abused that it did not exist, has been shameful.
Often the only alternative left to them has been to petition the church’s in-house compensation schemes.
In the two decades to 2015, compensation to survivors under the Melbourne Response, the scheme established by then archbishop George Pell, averaged just $35,000.
A national church redress scheme paid out on average $49,000. Once a survivor had received a payout under those schemes, they renounced all rights to further legal action.
The proposed Victorian laws will help survivors and give them greater bargaining power.
They can still look to the in-house schemes, or, if it is eventually constituted, the national redress scheme that may flow from the recent royal commission.
But if they choose instead to seek compensation through the courts in Victoria, they will be comforted that there is no legal defence denying the church exists.
That should make it easier to make claims.
Still, the system is weighted against survivors.
The cap on a still-to-be agreed to national redress scheme is set to be a modest $150,000. Most would get much less. Survivors that go through the legal system would still face an arduous and uncertain process.
The scale of child abuse by members of the clergy revealed by the Baillieu government’s Victorian parliamentary inquiry and the Gillard government’s royal commission has been barely believable.
The royal commission noted that 4444 people alleged they were sexually abused in Catholic institutions as children over several decades.
In the Anglican Church, nearly 1100 people said they were abused as children, while in the Uniting Church there was 430 allegations.
This disgrace has been widely known for several decades in Australia. It has been a scandal across all major religions in Australia but disproportionately in the Catholic church.
These new laws are long overdue.
Do you know more? Contact us securely via Journotips