PNG continues its support of Pacific legal website

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The signing of an agreement between the Papua New Guinea judiciary and the University of South Pacific (USP) for financial assistance will help maintain the Pacific legal website (Paclii) operated by USP in Vanuatu.
“The website is very important to the people who are involved in the law and justice sector,” Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia said yesterday.
Sir Salamo said the website contained legal information that would be vital to lawyers, judges, law students and the civil society.
He said that Paclii had become a vital tool to the work of lawyers and judges in PNG.
Sir Salamo said the website would also assist to provide “legal information and judgments from jurisdictions and countries around the Pacific”.
“The PNG judiciary was donating K500,000 to help Paclii continue its operations to help the law and justice sector in the Pacific,” he said.
He thanked the assistance of the PNG government.
“The government of PNG through the Department of Justice and Attorney-General has also agreed to donate K10,000 and another K100,000 per year as of 2018 and onwards”, Sir Salamo said.
He said PNG played a major role in the establishment of the website during the mid-1990s.
The head of School of Law at USP, Prof Eric Colvin, thanked the PNG judiciary for the financial assistance to help maintain the website.
He also thanked the Department of Justice and the Attorney-General for the additional funding.
Director of Paclii, Dr Anita Jowitt said free access to legal information was critical to the rule of law and Paclii provided that in its publications.