Amet should take the blame

Letters, Normal
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The National,Friday20January 2012

KINDLY allow me to share my observation on the role and quality of legal advice from Sir Arnold Amet to Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare.
I am not a lawyer but I feel that Sir Arnold as Sir Michael Somare’s chief legal advisor made or had allowed two critical errors of judgement which we are now witnessing the consequences of.
Sir Arnold should have advised the Parliament of the status of Sir Michael’s health condition when he was in Singapore so the Parliament could take contingency plans to appoint a new prime minister in case Sir Michael did not fully recover or died while in hospital.
This would avoid the creation of a power vacancy and the possibility of a coup-de-tat or military invasion.
This advice should have been provided by the attorney-general to Parliament before Sir Michael went for treatment.
Sir Arnold held the country to ransom by helping his friend cling on to power at the expense of the country’s security.
Say if it was the United States, the president in a similar position would have handed over his office to the vice-president and with it the weapons’ code.
By doing so the president would not compromise the security of the USA at any time.
Secondly,  Sir Arnold’s assumption that Sir Michael was still the PM and Peter O’Neill’s appointment was “illegitimate” is wrong because of the above ground and that it  is in our national interest to have a fit and proper PM at all times to protect the country’s sovereignty from outside invasion.
The Parliament has a constitutional role to protect its citizens at all times.
 The courts also have a similar constitutional duty as well to ensure the country’s interest is above all individual interest.
 I also blame Sir Arnold for badly advising Sir Michael to seek redress in court when the courts had no power in appointing a prime minster.
The election of PM is only performed in the parliament.
Sir Arnold has misled the Parliament on the first ground and did so again when he advised Sir Michael to present the court order to the Speaker of Parliament to reinstate him.
Sir Arnold is only pursuing his friend’s interest and not the country’s interest.
I can only conclude that Sir Arnold has misled or has allowed the country to be misled  and he  should stop.

Nationalist