Abuse survivors retraumatised by government focused on protecting public funds
An interim report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care has identified systemic failures in the handling of abuse claims by the state, with aggressive Crown lawyers and laws tilted against survivors leaving many retraumatised and ‘‘frequently disbelieved’’.
The wide-ranging criticism has prompted a promise to review the Limitations Act, which Crown law has used many times to successfully defend itself against abuse claims, even when the
courts have found abuse did occur.
The report,
Ta¯ wharau: Pu¯ rongo a te
Wa¯ , which was one of three released on Tuesday, provides a summary of the commission’s work to date, gathered from private and public hearings. It also concluded abuse in care continues to happen in New Zealand today.
Since the five-year inquiry was established in 2018, 1900 survivors and about 350 witnesses have registered with the commission. Its findings show a range of problems raised by survivors in the inquiry’s process, including how the Limitation Act is used.
Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins said there had already been improvements to state care since 2000 and more change was coming. He said the hurt and anguish that had been caused in New Zealand’s history was inexcusable.
‘‘This is not New Zealand at its best, it’s New Zealand at its absolute worse.’’
On specific changes to the Limitation Act, Hipkins said he didn’t want to pre-empt the commission’s final findings. ‘‘But we are not going to just wait until the final report is received.
‘‘Survivors have told us they find it difficult to navigate the different redress processes operated by state agencies, and we are exploring whether a single entrypoint is possible for historic claims. The Limitation Act, which sets time limits on recognising civil claims against the state, has been used to deny claims in court, and we are already looking into how the act might be applied in future for historic abuse claims.’’
This limit was identified as one of many legal barriers to hundreds of survivors receiving justice. Under the law abuse victims who do not bring a claim within six years of the offending are
‘‘This is not New Zealand at its best, it’s New Zealand at its absolute worse.’’
Chris Hipkins
Public Service Minister
highly likely to have it dismissed by the courts.
This, and other legal barriers such as laws protecting staff privacy and accident compensation laws that prevent claimants from suing for injury, mean that the Crown has been able to successfully fight off claims of abuse even when the judge finds that a claimant was abused.
The Government has been so successful in deflecting these claims, the commission found, that it has deterred many victims from coming forward.
‘‘Of the hundreds of claimants who have filed cases in courts, only a handful have ever had their claims fully heard. Of those
claims very few were decided in favour of the claimant.’’
In one instance Crown lawyers failed to disclose information about an alleged abuser’s previous convictions to the claimant for ‘‘a long period of time’’.
In other instances, the government’s legal team hired private investigators with ‘‘overly broad instructions’’, opposed name suppression for a sex abuse victim on ‘‘strategic grounds’’, and convinced a claimant to drop a police complaint on grounds that latter proved unfounded.
The report found survivors who made claims were frequently disbelieved and forced to retell their experiences again and again, which they found retraumatising.
The commission said it heard evidence that Crown law and government agencies avoided paying compensation even when abuse was proven. It found the state’s redress processes, including the
Crown’s approach to civil claims, have been overly focused on the financial implications to the state, rather than on providing satisfactory compensation to survivors and ensuring their wellbeing.
Hipkins said over time the Crown had spent a disproportionate amount of its energy defending unacceptable behaviour, rather than taking a victim centric approach.
‘‘That is a strategy we have already changed, and we are continuing to look at that.’’
In giving evidence to the commission, the Solicitor-General, Una Jagose, acknowledged the Crown had not been ‘‘sufficiently survivor-focused.’’ However, she said the Crown needed to balance abuse claims against ‘‘the need to be responsible with public money’’.
To date, 350 private sessions with survivors and commissioners have been conducted.
A second part of the report analysed 50 of these private sessions and the survivors’ experiences. Physical and sexual abuse, which included fondling and penetration, were the mostcommon types of abuse reported to commissioners.
The impact on survivors was wide-ranging, from drug and alcohol addiction to suicidal thoughts to crime, and sexual behaviour.