Optimising the inquiry into child sex abuse

At this inquiry, there is a risk that non-victims will gang up on someone for reasons other than sexual abuse, but the French system takes the presumption of innocence seriously: the suspect's lawyer has access to the dossier. If he can convince the juge that the truth lies elsewhere, that is the end of it.

Counsel assisting should not appear at hearings. The Commissioners, guided by the dossiers, should question witnesses.

Hearings

Alan Moir's cartoon in The Sydney Morning Herald of November 21, 2012 suggests that lawyers down on their luck and with mouths to feed are looking forward to more gainful employ at hearings.

A tight leash on lawyers

Lawyers' role should be strictly limited for three reasons.

First, the evidence a suspect gives cannot be used against him at a trial, but he can be done for perjury at the inquiry. It follows that the only sensible advice the pool lawyer can give him is: Tell the truth.

Second, in the French system, lawyers are not allowed to question witnesses directly lest they pollute the truth with sophistry: trick questions, false arguments etc. At these hearings, they can hand up questions for the chairman to ask.

Third, if lawyers are allowed to question witnesses, they might also revert to habit and prolong the process. The adversary system's longest spinout is 117 years.

Length

Fitzgerald said he could have spent 10 years doing nothing more than inquiring into ministerial re-zonings in south-east Queensland. (A Bjelkist minister, Russ Hinze, extorted bribes from some who wanted land re-zoned.) Fitzgerald stopped hearings after 18 months, and reported six months later.

The general truth about child sex crimes is already known; reinforcing that belief requires little more than a snapshot via selected cases of abuse and cover-up.