Magisterial Services need funding to maintain facilities

THE Magisterial Services urgently needs funding to maintain deteriorating facilities throughout the country, Chief Magistrate Nerrie Eliakim says.
Eliakim said yesterday during the biannual meeting of magistrates in Port Moresby that there were more than 400 court locations in the country but some had shut down due to lack of funding to maintain their facilities.
“We need to accommodate four district court magistrates in each province. There are a lot of deteriorating facilities and insufficient funding to help us maintain these facilities,” she said.
“If we are going to be sending out magistrates, we must accommodate them so we aim to have at least two to three houses in each province. We’ve got district court presence in all provinces and in some of the districts as well.
“We’ve got more than 400 gazetted court locations but over the years, some of them have to be shut down because of the lack of maintenance.”
Eliakim said most of the magistrates were only based in the provincial headquarters and could only be sent on circuit to the districts due to the lack of facilities.
She said the core function of the district was to provide services that were efficient and accountable.
The three-day workshop will engage magistrates in a consultation process. “We will have magistrates put into groups of the years of service and each group has to discuss the challenges they face to do with resourcing on the bench or within the court business,” she said. “From that information, we hope that the feedback will assist us to draft the transformation programme in line with high level outcomes outlined in the five-year corporate plan.” More than 90 senior magistrates are currently attending the national conference in Port Moresby where they are discussing the challenges they face in their provinces.