This memo suggests that judges should be above the law and due process. The memo says the Chief Justice should not stand trial on allegations of corruption and should not have to tell his story as part of his defence to the charges as ordinary people do. Instead the memo suggests the judges should just issue a statement and that will be the end of it - where is due process there? Especially as the memo accepts that the CJ made an administrative decision to withhold the money at the centre of the allegations in breach of a court order.
All judges are supposed to be political impartial but the memo shows it may be hard for the current government to get a fair hearing in the various cases now before the courts over its removal of the previous Somare regime.
There are also a number of worrying factual errors in the memo.
For example, the memo says that Prime Minister O’Neill has put his own people on the mercy committee so that if he or Namah get charged with contempt they will be pardoned. This would seem to be untrue as the Chairman of the mercy committee is Moses Maladina and he has been the chairman since 2005 when Michael Somare put him there.
memo, purportedly signed by Justice Kirriwom and published on PNGExposed blog 13th March 2012, if genuine, shows extreme bias exists in certain parts of the judiciary against the government of Peter O’Neill.
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