18^th March 2013
Executive Director of the ECAJ, Peter Wertheim, and Immediate Past President, Robert Goot, met with the Chair of the Royal Com­mis­sion, Justice Peter McClellan, on March 7, and received a full briefing about the way the Com­mis­sion will operate, the resources available to it and time estimates for com­plet­ing various phases of the Inquiry. Others in attend­ance included Counsel assisting, Gail Furness, Com­mis­sion­er Bob Atkinson and CEO Janette Dines.

“The Chairman made it clear that religious com­munit­ies and religious schools will not be the exclusive focus of the Inquiry, but they will neces­sar­ily be included in the spread of insti­tu­tions covered”, Wertheim said.

Some other key points to emerge from the briefing:

• The first sitting of the Royal Com­mis­sion is scheduled for 3 April in Sydney.
• There will be both public hearings and private sessions with 1 or 2 Com­mis­sion­ers. The private sessions are for people with inform­a­tion who do not want for any reason to give evidence at a public hearing.
• Inform­a­tion from private sessions will not be evidence or the found­a­tion for any finding. However, such inform­a­tion might result in a referral to the Police or be used to guide further invest­ig­a­tions of insti­tu­tions or indi­vidu­als. Such insti­tu­tions or indi­vidu­als will be notified before­hand of any poten­tially adverse inform­a­tion against them and will be accorded pro­ced­ur­al fairness.
• There will be no findings of abuse per se, only findings about insti­tu­tion­al and cultural failures in pre­vent­ing and dealing with abuse.
• The focus will be on producing recom­mend­a­tions for insti­tu­tion­al and cultural change, where needed, and eval­u­at­ing recom­mend­a­tions made in some 30 previous inquiries.
• A wide spread of insti­tu­tions will be covered as regards both the types of insti­tu­tions and their geo­graph­ic­al locations.
• A telephone answering service will be available to possible inform­ants. The persons taking the calls will be specially trained to deal sym­path­et­ic­ally with alleged victims and to refer them to coun­selling and law enforce­ment agencies where appro­pri­ate.
• A ‘ring-tail’ IT system has been estab­lished to capture and retrieve data.
• The Interim Report is expected to be out by mid-2014.
• The ECAJ asked the Chairman to be notified in the event that any Jewish school or other organ­isa­tion becomes a focus of the Commission’s invest­ig­a­tions.
• The ECAJ could seek leave to appear for any segment of the Inquiry that relates to a Jewish organ­isa­tion, and to make sub­mis­sions about best practice for screening employees and volun­teers, educating children and parents about the problem, respond­ing in various situ­ations and handling com­plaints.

Any person in our community who anti­cip­ates appearing at the Royal Com­mis­sion, at either a public hearing or a private session, is welcome to contact me to obtain further inform­a­tion about the process. If I cannot answer the question myself, I am happy to seek the inform­a­tion from the Com­mis­sion in the name of the ECAJ”, Wertheim said.

Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888 e: [email protected]