Church fails to be cut from abuse inquiry

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have again failed in a long-running legal bid to avoid the scrutiny of a Royal Commission inquiry into abuse in care.

The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry has been running for more than five years, investigating what happened to people in state and faith-based care.

It had been due to make its final report this month, but was granted an extension, partly to accommodate the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ legal bid to be excluded from its scrutiny.

The church has long argued that it has never assumed responsibility for the care of children, young people or vulnerable adults, and its activities fell outside the commission’s terms of reference. This was because the church did not have any residential facilities, nor did it operate in any other way that involved the systematic care of such people.

Opponents, however, have argued the church did at times place children in the unsupervised care of adults — not least for the practice of “witnessing”, where church members went door to door to explain their faith.

The Cabinet extended the commission’s terms of reference, “for the avoidance of doubt” to make it clear a faith-based institution could assume a responsibility for a person through an informal or pastoral “trust-based” care relationship.

The church sought a judicial review in the High Court, again seeking to be made exempt from the inquiry. That bid was rejected by the High Court in October, but the church went to the Court of Appeal, continuing to allege the commission was exceeding its terms of reference by inquiring into Jehovah’s Witnesses activities.

It also argued the extension of the commission’s terms was targeted at the Jehovah’s Witnesses and inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.

The Court of Appeal Justices, in a decision released on Wednesday, did not agree with the High Court’s view that it was for a commission to “authoritatively determine” the scope of its own jurisdiction.

The Appeal Court justices also did not agree Jehovah’s Witnesses had been targeted. “Rather, it is the Jehovah’s Witnesses who have sought to single themselves out as a group who should be excluded from scrutiny by the inquiry . . . notwithstanding the evidence of abuse committed by members of the church.”