Court upholds request to stay order to jail Devete

THE National Court presided by Justice Les Gavera-Nanu yesterday granted a stay order preventing an earlier court order by Justice Bernard Sakora to jail acting solicitor-general Neville Devete to six months with hard labour.
This followed an earlier urgent application seeking leave to make an application to stay the earlier orders to jail Mr Devete, which was granted yesterday morning.
Mr Devete’s application filed through his lawyers from Posman Kua Aisi Lawyers sought leave to appeal Justice Sakora’s decision of Oct 5 that convicted him for being in contempt of an earlier court order to pay two businessmen – Steven John Rose and John Charles Harrison.
The two were contracted by the State for their work rendered worth A$4,940,125 (K13,322,882).
While handing down his decision on the application to stay the Oct 5 order, Justice Gavera-Nanu said there were serious issues presented before him in the application that called for this decision so that the serious issues presented could be further heard and dealt with by the court.
Justice Gavera-Nanu’s decision was based on an application by Mr Devete’s lawyer Kerenga Kua, who submitted that there were irregularities or “errors” initially, which led to his client’s conviction.
Mr Kua submitted that the court order that was produced after the Feb 12 proceedings seeking default judgment was not representative of the decision handed down by then sitting judge Justice Sakora before the order was drawn up and served.
He also pointed out to the court yesterday that the order drafted and issued following the hearing of Feb 12 on the default judgment of the payout had been contrary to Justice Sakora’s ruling according to the transcripts.
Mr Kua also quoted the transcript from another proceeding by another judge, Justice Greg Lay, which also pointed out this error, and said it had to be corrected.
Another reference to that error was made on July 25 proceeding by Justice Sakora for the correction of that anomaly and again by Justice Gibbs Salika on Aug 22, who had also dismissed the motion by Mr Rose and Mr Harris and have Mr Devete charged for contempt.
Based on all the presented evidence by Mr Devete’s application seeking leave to stay the order to jail him, the court yesterday upheld the application to stay the order to jail Mr Devete.
In handing down his decision Justice Gavera-Nanu said the opportunity to correct this “error” was in February but did not happen.
However, before handing down the decision Justice Gavera-Nanu attempted a number of time to have Mr Rose disclose who had drawn up the draft order which carried the “error” but did not get any definite answer.