AUSTRALIA
SBS
By Greg Dyett
Source World News Radio
A lawyer who represented a clergy sex abuse victim who lost his case against the Catholic Church, says changes are needed to ensure the church cannot keep claiming immunity from legal action.
It’s known in legal circles as the Ellis defence and it’s been used by the Catholic Church in Australia when victims of clergy sex abuse have tried to sue.
This week Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell faced intense cross examination about the Ellis defence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney.
Former altar boy and sex abuse victim John Ellis tried to sue the Catholic Church trustees and Cardinal Pell.
But in 2007, the New South Wales Court of Appeal ruled the Church’s assets are held in property trusts and are protected from lawsuits against clergy sex abusers.
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