Lawyer denies Catholic Church tried to protect itself

By Pia Akerma
Australian
August 21, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/lawyer-denies-catholic-church-tried-to-protect-itself/story-fngburq5-1227031208193

A SENIOR lawyer who was ­instrumental in establishing the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese’s compensation scheme for victims of clergy sex abuse has ­denied any economic modelling was undertaken before a $50,000 cap was established.

This was despite the church’s plan to offer the scheme as an ­alternative to civil litigation.

Richard Leder, who acts on ­behalf of the archdiocese, its archbishops and its representatives in the Melbourne Response, yesterday told a royal commission that $50,000 was insufficient to meet the needs of some victims.

But he defended the church’s intentions in setting up the scheme and denied its requirement that participants waive their rights to future litigation was ­intended to protect the church and its assets.

“I don’t agree, but I can see people would say that,” Mr Leder said, prompting jeers from the public gallery during his testimony in Melbourne.

The royal commission’s work investigating institutional resp­onses to child sexual abuse has already prompted the archdiocese to review its compensation ­arrangements and consider whether the cap, currently sitting at $75,000, should be increased or removed.

Cardinal George Pell, who will provide further evidence to the commission from Rome today, has told victims this year that the cap should be removed.

Mr Leder said Cardinal Pell, who established the scheme as archbishop in 1996, had originally believed there should be no cap at all as it could be seen as ­“negative”.

Mr Leder said documents warning victims that civil claims would be “strenuously defended” was aimed at deterring a particular lawyer with a significant number of abuse victims as clients.

Under fierce questioning from commission chair Peter McClellan, Mr Leder said no one involved in establishing the Melbourne Response had thought it wrong to deny victims a chance at civil litigation success by keeping the church as an entity which could not be sued.

“The law is the law and these are the defences,” Mr Leder said.

“No one reached the view that it was the wrong thing to do.” He said the Melbourne ­Response was meant for cases which would have no success in the courts.

A Victorian parliamentary inquiry last year recommended church dioceses incorporate so they can be sued, removing the “Ellis defence’’ established when the NSW Court of Appeal struck down a lawsuit lodged by former altar boy and abuse victim John Ellis in 2007. The court accepted the church’s defence that it was not a legal entity which could be sued and it was not liable for abuse committed by a priest.