70 graduate as lawyers

By SALLY POKITON
Lawyer trainees from the Legal Training Institute have been urged to uphold the rule of law as they go out to practise law.
This was the message given to the 70 lawyer trainees who graduated from the institution yesterday.
LTI deputy director David Lambu told them they had been trained to uphold the rule of law at all times.
PNG Law Society president Kerenga Kua urged them to use the law as a tool which should be applied as an agent of change and that they should safeguard the law from misuse and abuse.
“As lawyers, you are trained to advise on how the law can be used for the betterment of a change to the country,” Kua said.
He said the duty of a lawyer throughout the world was to defend and protect the rule of law and to make sure it
was maintained and understood.
Kua said the government through its three arms – the legislature, executive and judiciary – could only exercise the power given to them by law and the government shall be ruled by the rule of law and be subjected to it.
“None of the three arms of government have the right nor the authority to exercise power, which is not specifically given to them,” Kua said.
He said a study conducted by the South Pacific Law Society revealed a ratio of one lawyer for every 10,000 people in PNG.
Kua said PNG still  needed to produce more lawyers and he would like to see the ratio of lawyers to people reduced.