Court reserves decision on Schram case

The National National

The Lae National Court has reserved its decision for next Wednesday on Dr Albert Schram’s application seeking leave for a judicial review of his sacking as vice-chancellor of the University of Technology (Unitech).
The case returned to court on Tuesday under Justice Leka Nablu.
Emmanuel Isaac, of Emmanuel Lawyers representing Schram, moved Schram’s application but it was opposed by the lawyers for the State and Unitech.
The main issue the court was asked to deal with among others was whether a judicial review was available to Schram because he was employed by Unitech under a contract of employment (CoE).
Isaac submitted that judicial review was available while the lawyers on the other side submitted otherwise.
The submissions by Unitech and State lawyers said Schram was employed under a CoE, his remedy or relief could only be found under the contract and so he was not entitled to a judicial review.
The State and Unitech lawyers relied on two earlier cases to support their submissions. In the two cases the court had refused the leave applications of two teaching staff at Unitech who had sought leave on their respective applications for judicial review. Isaac relied on a more recently decided case to submit that judicial review was available to Schram although he was employed under a CoE.
Isaac referred to the recent cases of Lupari v Somare and the other decision of the Supreme Court in Luma v Kali.
The basis of his submission was that the CoE was made under subsection 28 (2) of the PNG University of Technology Act which provided that the terms and conditions of employment of the vice-chancellor must be set out in a statute.
Isaac said the statute permitted the council to determine the terms and conditions of the employment of a VC so his submission was that the CoE was made under a statute, thus bringing the CoE into the public realm and so entitling Schram to judicial review. The main claim of Schram in the substantive hearing was that he was denied natural justice because the charges were many (21 in all) which ranged from activities that took place as far as five years back, and he was not given the opportunity to properly prepare his response to the charges because:

  • He was not given adequate time; and,
  • He was denied access to important documents that would have enabled to him to properly prepare his response to the charges.