SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
news.com.au
January 1, 2019
By Tom Rabe and Phoebe Loomes
Victims of child sex abuse in NSW can now sue the church after the state government removed a legal roadblock used by institutions to avoid compensating survivors.
From January 1 churches will no longer be able to use the “Ellis defence” as a way of avoiding paying compensation to victims.
In 2007 former altar boy John Ellis lost a landmark civil action against the Catholic Church over child sex abuse after it successfully argued it had no “legal personality” and was not a proper defendant.
Mr Ellis is relieved survivors will now be able to “hold institutions to account”.
“We are now going to see a pathway to justice for survivors of abuse that they haven’t had in the past,” Mr Ellis told AAP.
“It’s been a long, long battle,” Mr Ellis said.
Removing the legal defence was a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman said the changes to the law meant all survivors of child sex abuse had the same access to compensation through civil litigation — no matter the organisation responsible.
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