AUSTRALIA
The Age
July 26, 2013
Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.
Of more than 2000 complaints by clergy child-sex abuse victims in Victoria, only one has ever made it through the civil court process to a verdict, a researcher will tell a human rights conference on Friday. And that case failed.
The researcher and victims advocate, Judy Courtin, also says that more than half the victims associated with the secondary victims she interviewed are now prematurely dead, either through suicide or substance abuse.
She says the civil law’s statute of limitations and especially the Ellis defence – by which the Catholic Church successfully argued it was not an entity that could be sued – has deterred lawyers so that ”victims are stymied … a clear breach of a fundamental human right”.
Criminal proceedings are not much more successful, with about four victims in every 1000 finding their abuser convicted, she says.
Ms Courtin is addressing a high-profile human rights conference held by Monash University’s Castan Centre. Other speakers include Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, feminist Eva Cox, Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, and Refugee Immigration Legal Centre director David Manne.
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