Name: George Pell's last-chance appeal allowed by High Court | ABC News
Uploaded: 2020-03-16T03:20:12.000Z
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Future simple

the high court will hear a challenge by Cardinal George Pell over his conviction for child sex abuse.

Reporter Elizabeth Burn joins us now from the high court in camera Elizabeth.

Past simple

First off, Just take us through what happened there in the court this morning.

We had to wait till the end of the least.

But the high court to judges of the high court of decided that the full bench should consider George Pills case where he is seeking to challenge the Victorian Court of Appeal, ruling that Hedge upheld his conviction by a jury in February this year.

Now there's no explanation by the High Court judges today, but take us through what is known about that application by George Pills Legal team for a hearing.

Well, we know about the arguments because both legal teams filed extensive paper documents in a head off this application this morning, and they basically outlined the battleground as being George pills.

Lawyers want to support Justice Weinberg's justice Mark Weinberg's dissenting view in the Court of Appeal, where he found that the jury result was unreasonable and that there was a prospect of while he was quite.

He questioned the evidence given by the complainant wth e other two judges through all of that out, and I held the jury finding.

So the prosecutors are saying that there's no foundation for ah high Court appeal, but now they're going to have to go on develop those arguments to fight it out in the court, probably next year.

And so, in previous coverage off the defense's case, it said that it was going to be relying on two proposed grounds for appeal that focus on the majority of deceiving to dismiss pulse cases you just mentioned, but I'd like to go into those in a bit more detail with you.

So the E quoted the defense in these papers is saying the majority erred by finding that their belief in the complainant required the applicant to establish that the offending was impossible.

So can you just talk us through what that means in layman's terms?

Well, what that was about was this question about whether George Pell's robes were too heavy to have allowed this offending to have occurred.

That was sort of at the core of it, so there will be no doubt, some more discussion about that in the high court because both sides will be wanting to push their arguments that on the one hand that that wasn't an issue, that he could still have committed the offenses wearing those roads and, of course, the other side that well, it was impossible for him to have done that.

It's interesting the question about where they raised the question about George Pell having to prove that it was impossible.

That's a sort of a little bit of illegal somersault, really.

Whether that will be an issue in the high court, I'm not sure.

I think people will have to go back and think very hard about how they present that when the when the court comes to consider it.

And so there and the second proposed ground was the the majority, urging their conclusion that the verdicts were not unreasonable.

They weren't I'm reasonable on the other side.

Well, the single judge, Marc Wander, said that it was unreasonable and that was because he'd questioned wth e evidence given by the complainant to who gave evidence to the jury in secret so we can never know, Watch some of you know, some of that material waas because that was a ll held in camera and only the judges and the jury know about it.

But, you know, these things will have to bay developed and, uh, with dash as the A cz.

The case goes forward and know that we'll find out more because both sides will be filing their arguments to the high court and that will be published on the Internet, on the high court site before any hearing happen.

First of all, you've been covering the high court for quite some time.

What percentage off cases that apply for an appeal to be heard, actually get heard.

Well, I don't know what I haven't got a figure on not, but it is quite.

They're the ones that apply and never even make it to first base.

There are the ones that end up in this list, which are mostly dismissed.

It's very unusual for the High Court to say yes to a case on the papers, although occasionally it does like a dude today on.

But you find many Maur cases that go to a special leave application hearing.

Many more of those do get through, although quite a few of them are rejected as well.

But if the high court's willing to hear someone argue out why they should have a hearing, they much more inclined to say We think there's a prospect of a good case here and yes, oh dear, have any idea about those percentages of the number of cases?

Can you point to a case previously, where there has been an appeal to the high court, the High Kick High Court has decided to hear that appeal and it's being successful.

I mean, I'm not quite sure what the percentage of successful appeals to the court, but that's quite often cases do succeed.

I think the the ones that I enjoy the most, there's only been one of Jason's being here, other ones where someone has represented themselves.

But you know, there's sometimes of the high court.

One thing I will say that the high court, though, is when it does rule.

It gives a decisive and clear ruling because it wants to clarify the law.

In most cases so often I'll be prepared for some complicated response off some complicated judgment, and I'll find that have just laid something out very simply so that everyone can understand it.

So whatever they do with this case, I think that's that's probably what we're hitting for either way.

You mentioned that the two, the legal team representing different factors in this case, what will file documents ahead of the hearing?

And when we're with the hearing, be likely to be before the end of this year or not.

I don't think there's only a few weeks of sitting left and they're all taken up.

It's likely to bay sometime next year, though.

 It could be even later next year, but I would imagine that the legal teams in this will be doing a bit of work over Christmas. 