AUSTRALIA
Mediate.com
January 2018
by Greg Rooney
The profound apology has been an essential part of abuse redress schemes adopted by a number of religious institutions in Australia for supporting victims of abuse within their organisations.
It has also been applied by the Australian Government in its response to institutional abuse within the Australian Defence Force through the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART). A number of Australian State governments are in the process of adopting a similar redress scheme for dealing with abuse within their local police forces.
These schemes have not only had a transformative effect for the victims of that abuse they also have had a profound effect on those representatives giving the apology. As a result they have a powerful influence on bringing about a change of culture within those institutions.
Removing barriers for victims to obtain redress
These redress schemes have a number of unique features.
Firstly, claimants are accepted into the scheme without having to prove the criminal standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt that the abuses occurred. Some schemes have reduced the level of proof to the civil onus of the balance of probabilities while others have adopted a far lesser onus requiring the application simply to have the appearance of being plausible. This makes it easier for victims to come forward and report the abuse.
These type of claims are evidentially hard to prove because it is usually one person’s word against the other. Historical claims are also difficult to sustain because of the passing of time. Dropping the onus of proof to a lower level allows the matter to be dealt with without the claimant having to re-engage with the perpetrator through the investigating process. This takes further pressure off claimants
Secondly, there is no involvement by the perpetrator of the abuse once the claim has been accepted. The apology is given by senior religious figures, military officers and police commanders on behalf of the institution in which the abuse occurred. Again this protects the claimant from having to re-engage with the perpetrator avoiding the very real potential for re-traumatisation.
The traditional restorative justice/ victim offender mediation approach of focusing on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large does not apply with these redress schemes.
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