AUSTRALIA
ABC News
The Catholic Church has dismissed reports it is planning to continue relying on a legal defence that blocks victims of child sexual abuse from taking action.
In 2007 the New South Wales Court of Appeal found the Catholic Church could not be sued for compensation because it was not a legal entity.
The decision ended a lengthy battle for Sydney lawyer John Ellis, who was sexually abused by a priest in the 1970s.
His experience was examined by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in March last year.
At the public hearing, former Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell was asked whether the “Ellis defence”, as it has become known, should still be used.
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