Be fair in serving: Sir Gibbs

CHIEF Justice Sir Gibbs Salika has reminded all members of the judiciary to be fair in serving the people.
He said there were constitutional requirements in dealing with cases, but if the requirements were not complied with, the judiciary could be held for breaching the Constitution.
Sir Gibbs challenged his fellow judges, magistrates, lawyers, police officers, Correctional Services officers, law and justice sector agency officers at opening of the legal year.
He said criminal cases had a constitutional time-frame to be dealt with in four months.
“We, the judiciary, are here to ensure that the rule of law is maintained to create a fairer society,” he said.
“No one is above the law and no one is below it.
“The law must be seen to be applied evenly to all, this includes giving timely decisions.
“In relation to criminal cases, the constitutional time-frame for criminal cases to be dealt with is four months. We need to and must comply with the constitutional requirements.
“If we cannot comply with that requirement, the chief justice is required to report this to the minister responsible for justice administration, which in any case, we are in breach of the constitution,” he said.
Sir Gibbs said the judicial system needed reforming to make justice accessible to everyone and for the law to be applied evenly to all.
Sir Gibbs is in his third year as chief justice of Papua New Guinea.
He is focused on making justice accessible to all in a timely, cost effective and efficient manner.
He is focused on reducing the backlog of cases as well.
In order to achieve this goal, he said reforms such as the integrated electronic case management system launched last year needed to be fully utilised.
The system protects court documents from being tempered with and will connect all provinces through satellite.
The integrated electronic case management system will enable cases to be dealt with promptly.