Xenophon Judge,jury, Executioner, Sky News, September 15, 2011

Xenophon "Judge,jury, Executioner"

Sky News
September 15, 2011

http://www.skynews.com.au/local/article.aspx?id=661945&vId=

Civil liberties advocates want Nick Xenophon hauled before a parliamentary privileges committee after the independent senator named a Catholic priest at the centre of a rape allegation.

The Australian Civil Liberties Association said the naming in parliament of Monsignor Ian Dempsey, accused of raping a now Anglican bishop, John Hepworth, was the 'height of irresponsibility'.

'Parliamentary privilege comes with responsibility and in our view that responsibility has been breached,' association spokesman Terry O'Gorman told AAP on Thursday.

'Xenophon is acting as judge, jury and executioner.'

Mr O'Gorman said the law protecting the reputations of people accused of sexual crimes until after a committal hearing was in place for a reason.

'Mud sticks in relation to sexual allegations,' he said.

Monsignor Dempsey, potentially, is able to make a right-of-reply to the Senate, a course of action being considered by the priest.

But Mr O'Gorman said Senator Xenophon's actions should be referred to the upper house's privileges committee.

The senator remains unrepentant about his naming of Monsignor Dempsey.

He accused the Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, of 'an extraordinary lapse of judgment' in dealing with the rape claim.

The senator seized on an admission by Archbishop Wilson that Monsignor Dempsey had not been stood down because the allegations did not involve the sexual assault of a child.

'However, if there are allegations of rape involving a priest against an adult then the criteria is different. I find that extraordinary.'

Senator Xenophon said the fact that the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, had intervened in the matter was an admission of 'a complete and abject failure of process' by the church in SA.