CLRC to study brutality

 By BENNY GETENG

THE Constitutional and Law Reform Commission officers will use the 8-Mile police brutality incident in the nation’s capital as a case study, an official says.

Ken Zilong, the commission’s director of drafting and advisory, said: “We will use this as a case study to consult widely and respond to the Government’s terms of reference issued to the CLRC.”

The commission was recently issued the terms of reference by Justice Minister Kerenga Kua to inquire into and report on the reform of laws relating to city planning and management of cities and urban development. 

The commission would consider:

• The relevance of the Cities Act 1971; 
• To what extent the relationship between the urban local governments and provincial governments under the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Le­vel Governments 1995 affects the planning and ma­nagement of cities and urban development; and
• To what extent the Informal Sector Development and Control Act 2004 affects the economy and management of cities and urban centres.

“This terms of reference came about as a result of the events leading up to the Lae city ethnic crisis in November to December 2011, resulting in the death of a number of citizens and displacement of a large number of people, particularly from the Highlands region, and the need to promote positive growth of cities in the country as well as the need for proper planning and management of cities and urban development,” Zilong said.

“We are now in the process of drafting a paper that basically gives the background to the TOR and highlights the issues for further deliberations in this reference.”