Judges need houses to serve people

 By ROSELYN ELLISON

LACK of accommodation is preventing judges from living in East Sepik, Justice Nicholas Kirriwom says.

He said two judges serving in the province were doing so on a fly-in fly-out arrangement over the past two years. 

The two judges were to be permanently based in Wewak.

Kirriwom said during the opening of the legal year at the Wewak Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Kaltex it cost the judiciary in the past two years millions of kina for the two judges to travel from Port Moresby to conduct sittings in Wewak, Maprik and Vanimo.

Kirriwom and acting Justice Iova Geita are assigned to East Sepik.

“This unsatisfactory situation prevailed because we could not secure suitable houses for our accommodation in Wewak,” Kirriwom said.

He said the idea of decentralising the court system and placing judges in the provinces was to cut down on unnecessary travel and accommodation costs.

“I am now calling on the East Sepik provincial government and administration to look into this situation seriously,” he said.