Continued (regarding Banjo Patterson),

<<I find it significant that the jury of twelve Australians selected randomly from the electoral roll had found George Pell guilty and was overruled by Chief Justice Kiefel and the six Justices of the High Court, all well-seasoned technicians of the law.>>

I don't. For me it's common, in the sense of justice. That being if a state/territory and their court systems stuff-up on a matter, make an error or poor judgement, you have a High Court to provide you with an alternative in terms of justice if someone has made claims against you.

Foxy,

Nathan has it in one. The fact that 7-0 high court judges threw out the victoria judges' decisions shows how badly the Vic judges screwed up.

7-0 means that there was absolutely no doubt that the evidence presented did not meet the requirements and if the victorian judges had any honour they would resign in disgrace.

shadowminister,

I agree with Gerard Henderson when he writes:

" ... it is a rare moment in Australia's history when
all seven members of the High Court question a verdict
which has been supported by a state police force and the
two most senior members of a state Supreme Court."

He's right, questions regarding our justice system and sexual abuse
victims, will undoubtedly continue for a very long time.

Dear Foxy,

«Accordingly Pell continued to protect pedophile clergy.»

So?

This just means that Pell was dedicated to the Catholic Church and was willing to defend its reputation at any cost.

Was he doing the right thing? maybe, maybe not, you may hate what he did, but his actions give no indication of any pedophile tendencies of his own. I could even argue that they reduce the probability of the above because a real pedophile would likely be a coward, stay in the shadows and betray his friends in order to remove all suspicion from himself.

You may say that for you and for your legal system, all that matters is WHAT he did, not why, but for me the WHYs matters far more than the what's.

Whether he did or didn't do the actions alleged against him (which we are unlikely to ever know), Pell was NOT a pedophile. Yes, he could have made mistakes, possibly serious mistakes, but whatever he did was [in his own best estimate] in the service of his Church and not for personal sexual gratification.

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Dear

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You wrote :

« There are already a huge number of people falsely convicted and having their convictions overturned later »
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That is not the case for sex crimes, shadowminister, in fact it’s exactly the opposite : more than 99% of accused get off scot-free !

As I pointed out in my previous post, less than 1% of perpetrators of sexual assaults in Australia are found guilty (dixit Merryl Gee and Jane Gilmore), and for every single false allegation, there are over 220 rapes not reported to police.

The intimate nature of sex crimes, the impossibility of proving lack of consent, the lack of a credible eyewitness, the psychological trauma and feeling of shame that sex crimes provoke, all contribute to preventing or delaying reporting sex crimes to the police, and results in the obliteration of significant material evidence as well as the memory of sometimes small but important incriminating details.

It is because of these insurmountable difficulties – due to the very specific nature and circumstances of sex crimes – that, in the final count, it all boils down to a case of “my word against yours” – which is why most sex crimes are never brought to trial or even reported to the police.

Under the present system, the accused receives the benefit of the presumption of innocence, which, à contrario, means that the complainant is presumed to be lying. That is not a level playing field. In a contest where there is nothing more to go on but “my word against yours” the result is a foregone conclusion.

That is not justice.

In my view, there should be no presumption of guilt or innocence of either defendant or complainant. Each case should be tried on its individual merits under the adversarial trial system in which complainant and defendant are treated on an equal footing – neither being advantaged, the onus of proof (“beyond a reasonable doubt”) resting equally on both.

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Oops, that was meant for shadowminister !

Sorry about that.

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