Australia’s highest court yesterday deferred ruling on an appeal to overturn the conviction of former Vatican treasurer George Pell for sexually assaulting two teenaged choirboys in the 1990s.
After two days of legal arguments, the Australian High Court said that it was still considering whether to allow the appeal, the last avenue for the 78-year-old cardinal to clear his name.
If the court does agree to consider the appeal, the seven-member panel of justices would then move straight into deciding whether to acquit Pell or uphold his conviction, a process that would not require another public hearing.
Photo: EPA-EFE
A third option — sending the case back to a lower court — is also possible.
“The court reserves its decision on this matter,” High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel said, after hearing arguments from Pell’s lawyer and the crown prosecutor.
Kiefel did not give a time frame for the court’s decisions.
Pell became the highest-ranked Catholic worldwide to be jailed for child sex offenses when he was sentenced to a six-year term. He has been in prison for a year and would remain there while the court considers its judgements.
Pell was in December 2018 convicted by a jury on one charge of sexual penetration of a child younger than 16 and four charges of an indecent act with a child younger than 16 when Pell was archbishop of Melbourne.
His legal team took the case to the High Court after the Victoria Court of Appeal upheld his conviction with a 2-1 majority.
His lawyers said that the lower court verdict erred in shifting the onus of proof to the defense and in finding that it was open to the jury to find Pell guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Crown Prosecutor Kerri Judd yesterday faced heavy questioning about the facts of the case, which highlighted potential doubts about whether Pell could have committed the offenses.
Pell’s lawyers said that he would have been on the front steps of St Patrick’s Cathedral greeting parishioners at the time that his accuser said he was in the priests’ sacristy alone with two boys.
Pell’s lawyer, Bret Walker, said that it would be wrong for the High Court to send the case back to the Court of Appeal.
“We win this argument, we wish the matter to be over,” he told the justices. “The best way for it to be over is by an order of this court entering acquittal.”
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