CLIENT INTAKE - CSA QUESTIONNAIRE & General legal advice and direction

by wifibandit 20 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  wifibandit

  CLIENT INTAKE—CSA QUESTIONNAIRE

  General legal advice and direction

  Hi WiFi.

  I don't believe these have been seen before.

  One is a general guideline given to elders who report a child safety issue in the congregation, and the second is the form they have to return to the legal department.

  They are both recent forms.

  The questionnaire has an interesting question at A.6 stating if the legal dept has advised to contact the authorities yes or no. This implies the legal dept make the decision whether police should be involved or not.

  Also, the form still refers to this act as a sin - see H.1 and H.2.

  Thanks Anon!
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  DATA-DOG

  Yep. They added some fluff, but there have been no essential changes. The two problems desperately needing reform are ignored.

  DD
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  OrphanCrow

  Well...that blows their stand on "clergy confidentiality" right out of the water

  *to add...it makes me physically ill to read all the intrusive questions that are part of the WTS' investigative approach. What gives a religion the right to ask victims these personal questions? Why are they allowed to keep this data on file? Why are they allowed to detail child sex abuse crimes and keep records on the minor children involved and on the nature of the crimes committed against them???
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  DATA-DOG

  Very true, OC. There exists ZERO confidentiality between the Eldubs and the "confessions" of "congregants."

  Hopefully, the WTBTS loses their case in Deleware, USA.

  DD
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  slimboyfat

  What sort of entry is required for the box "current spiritual sanding"?

  Is it like status and position? Active/elder or inactive/publisher, or a judgement, good, bad or average, or what?
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  freddo

  The Legal dept phone number phone number looks like London England. So I guess this is a UK form especially as organisation is spelled with an "s", not a "z".

  Can anyone get it off to the ARC and the UK enquiry?

  (Especially the self serving box with the sentence "The information will also enable the Legal Department to jointly defend the congregation elders, and the organisation of Jehovah's Witnesses, should litigation arise." at the top of the Client Intake - CSA Questionnaire.)
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  TheWonderofYou

  1. "Telephon the legal department" without allowance of victim and offender, LegDep decides according to the special circumstances if legal steps are already necessary [as defined by law] or if only Safeguard elders with special guidance and help is sufficant.
  

  2. Should legal steps be necessary then congregation elders are pulled in duty, they must inform police or other authority but also protect secretly legal advice to elders, but seemingly only if "a child" is further in risk. (what if an adult person was abused?)

  3. At the same time they must fill out in some special cases written forms that are necessary for protecting the Legal Department and Elders in the Laywer-client privilege. Obviously there will not be reported any minor cases of "abuse" but only "legal"-relevant anyway.

  
  

  
  
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  OrphanCrow

  Okay...reading the forms some more and I have questions...

  1.) what do the letters CSA stand for?

  2.) why is this a "client intake" form? Who is the "client"? The elders? (is this how they are trying to keep the info secret?)

  3.) about the second document...the general legal guidelines...

  - is there a textbook that we do not have access to? Is there a "Shepherd the Flock of God" textbook that is used to train the elders? The document makes reference to "chapter 5, paragraph 39" in regard to questioning minors

  And, not a question but an observation.

  #4 in the legal guideline document...notes are no longer to be taken. That is a big change. In testimony at the ARC (can't remember which WT goofus it was that said this), it was revealed that when a minor was to be questioned, one elder was to do the questioning while another one watched and took notes.
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  OrphanCrow

  Yeah. Now I get it. The call to the Legal Department.

  That is instruction to the elders to "lawyer up". Immediately. Before they take a piss or fart or sneeze. Lawyer up. Protect the confidentiality of the information they are about to deal with.

  These forms are to re-define the relationship between the WTS and the elders. The elders become clients of the WT legal team

  And then the elders, who are now clients with legal representation, go off and conduct a kangaroo court where the victim has no representation, no prior knowledge of what is really happening. And neither does the accused. No representation. Nobody speaking for either party. But the elders have lawyers.

  And everything that the victim, the accused, witnesses, et al, says goes into making a judicial decision that is now part of the elders' "confidential" information that they share with their lawyers, the WT legal team.

  Yeah...the need to phone the legal team first before making any move has a primary purpose - to establish a client-lawyer relationship between the elders and the WTS. Protect information. Control information.
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  TheWonderofYou

  CSA is the Central Statistics Agency

  "Do not send the Legal Department or the Service Department any electronic or written correspondence unless you are specifically requested to do so."

  this makes the impression to me that this "official procedure" is only started if a report to the police or authority is simultaneously necessary. At this moment the victim and the abuser should already get their legal representatives, wheres the elder only held court about spiritual matters.

  This means in all other cases (without sending this form to the Legal Department) elders and legal department are not protected at all. Therefore in those cases even more confidentiality is needed not to make no false accusations and not to blame someone as abuser.

  What is not reported to the statistic agency does not count.