Priests should be made tell of sex abuse cases, say MPs

NSW MPs want a ­judicial review of laws governing the reporting of church officials who know of child sex abuse.

The royal commission has heard that admissions from child sex offenders made during confession were treated with secrecy.

NSW MPs have called on new ­Attorney-General Mark Speakman to consider launching a ­judicial review of laws governing the reporting requirements of church officials who become aware of cases of child sex abuse.

The calls come after shocking revelations in the royal commission alleging that many church ­officials used canon law and the ­secrecy of confession to avoid ­reporting paedophiles to police.

Upper house MP Scot MacDonald, and former parliamentary secretary for the Hunter region, which was devastated by dozens of cases of church-related child sex abuse, is among those leading the charge for the judicial review.

“There must be no doubting those in a position of authority are accountable for their action or ­inaction,” he said.

“This judicial review should not wait for the royal commission to finish its work ... institutional abuse doesn’t seem to be going away.”

As former attorney-general, ­Gabrielle Upton undertook extensive work to draft policy for a ­judicial review to assess whether regulations were tough enough to hold to account church officials who had ignored or covered up cases of child sex abuse.

Mr MacDonald is now pressuring Mr Speakman to resume the policy work started by Ms Upton, and to amend regulations before the commission’s final findings.

The calls came a day after the commission heard that admissions from child sex offenders made during confession were treated with secrecy and not ­reported. “I have seen that canon, what’s called the pastoral­ ­approach, consistently misapplied and used as an excuse to justify lack of action,” US priest Father Thomas Doyle told the commission. “The focus seems to have been consistently on the priest ... either getting (him) off the hook, taking care of him or punishing him in some way.”

The commission on Thursday heard multiple accounts of church sex offenders who had informed superiors of their offences, but had gone unreported and largely ­unpunished because their superior had honoured the rule of “crimen sollicitationis” which treats information shared during confession with utmost secrecy.

Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald said the commission would likely recommend “reportable conduct regimes similar to that which exist in NSW” to effectively override the Catholic Church’s practice of secrecy. But these laws make an exception for admissions made during confession.

The MP argues the laws also need to be tougher with regard to holding church officials to account for historical offences.

In NSW it is illegal to withhold information that could help in the prosecution of an offender, a law which Victoria introduced in 2014.

Mr Speakman has not ruled out revisiting the policy.

“The NSW government fully supports the royal commission and is carefully considering the royal commission’s findings, ­observations and recommendations made to date ... the NSW ­government is also committed to reviewing child sexual assault ­offences,” he said.