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Tom Maher's avatar

A thought-provoking piece this. I am struck by the phrase ‘following their conscience rather than legal advisers’. I know that in my endeavours to flush the truth out of the Vincentian Order regarding Castleknock College, legal advice has been invoked to justify blatant obstruction and hostile silence.

I am not a legal expert but I remain rather baffled as to why obstruction on child abuse matters is not a basis for criminal prosecution. Maybe it would require new legislation, I have no idea. But something needs to be done to change/tilt legal advisers’ calculation when it comes to advising the likes of the Jesuit Order as to the legal implications of withholding evidence of wrongdoing.

At the moment, it would appear that the likes of the Jesuit or Vincentian Orders believe that they have a free pass to obstruct and withhold information without any serious legal ramifications for them. This needs to change. The current paradigm of drip drip revelations followed by opprobrium needs to give way to a legal obligation for full and frank disclosure.

My proposal would be something along the lines that the Heads of Clerical Orders are questioned publicly under Oath with no Right to Silence. The questions would be compiled by survivors and interested parties who have been investigating past abuse cases. If a verbal cross examination is too culturally McCarthyesque, I believe the questions and answers could be conducted by email. The key would be to have the Q & A in the public domain and a legal duty to tell the truth.

I am happy for this proposal to be shot down as I am no legal expert but what I am not happy about is the routine obstruction into historical child abuse based on ‘legal advice’. That has to change.

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Tom Maher's avatar

By way of a P.S.

I am expecting my proposal to be dismissed or more likely, just ignored. However, I would just add that a legal duty to make a full and frank disclosure is not without precedent.

One’s tax returns for example are compiled with the legal obligation for a full disclosure. Partial disclosure is not legally acceptable. Yet partial and sullen disclosure has been the religious Orders’ paradigmatic approach to historical child abuse.

Clearly, their obstruction is morally repugnant. Most reasonable people can see that. But why is this passively aggressive partial disclosure that the religious Orders’ usually deploy somehow viewed as being legally acceptable?

Perhaps a more apt example might be bankruptcy proceedings. Partial disclosure here again is simply not tolerated. In the case of the moral bankruptcy of the religious orders’ failure to disclose child abuse - it shouldn’t be either.

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