Court rejects application for new evidence on ongoing case

THE Waigani Committal Court last Tuesday rejected an application by a lawyer seeking orders for police to include new evidence in an ongoing case.
Magistrate Cosmas Bidar rejected an application made by lawyer Emma Wurr from the Public Solicitor’s office to have additional evidence added in the case of her client Sam Ketan Kissi charged with abduction, deprivation of liberty and sexual penetration (two counts).
Police prosecutor Sgt Joseph Sangam said: “The court is supposed to rule on the evidence that is before the court now and this particular application is delaying such with regards to submissions being done.
“What the police have decided to put on file is the evidence that the police will be relying on.
“It is not for the defence to tell us what evidence we should collect and include on our file.”
Magistrate Bidar, before ruling, gave the court attendees a historical rundown on PNG’s court process.
“Previously, before 1980, the committal court proceedings in PNG were run differently,” he said.
“In those days, when someone is charged with an indictable offence such as wilful murder and armed robbery, the witnesses will appear in person.
“The witnesses will be subjected to examination and cross-examination and re-examination and all this evidence will be taken down. In those days, we did not have computers, we only had spirit duplicators (old printing machines used in the 1960s),” he said.
“Evidence will be taken down in writing and if some gets committed to trial in the National Court the same witnesses will appear again and we would go through the
same process again of examination, cross-examination and re-examination.
“This method was interfused when the amendment of the district court act took place and we’ve being running with this (new) system for almost 40 years now.”
Bidar then told attendees that in his 40 years on the bench, this was only the third time he had heard an applications such as this.
Bidar then rejected Wurr’s application and fixed Dec 13 for submission on evidence while Kissi remains in remand.