Submission to Royal Commission: Civil litigation and child sexual abuse

This APS submission, made in 2014, is in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Issues Paper 5, that addresses the effectiveness of current civil litigation processes.

The APS supports the Commission’s attempts to define systems and processes that minimise their impact on victim/survivors and protect them from additional harm. Given that reliving one’s story is likely to be distressing and potentially re-traumatising to the victim/survivor, this has important implications for the civil litigation process. The APS submission states that systems of redress must ensure that their processes and procedures do not inadvertently expose complainants to further harm.

The APS recommends that consideration be given to alternatives to the court system, including the potential for practices and processes within institutions to better manage allegations of abuse. The APS stresses that what is relevant for all of these matters is to consider how victims may be empowered beyond the helplessness that was part of their traumatic experience.

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