Law institute looks for land

By JULIA DAIA BORE
PAPUA New Guinea Legal Training Institute director Pauline Mogish wants the government to help it find land to build a permanent headquarters in the National Capital District.
Mogish said this was needed to cater for the increasing demands from the government to churn out more lawyers.
She  said yesterday the government’s demand and the ever increasing intake of students each year was pushing the institute to have its own premises.
She said staff and students had to find their own accommodation.
She said LTI staff must be properly looked after to ensure there was not too great a staff turn-over.
Mogish said her office was in the process of identifying an adequate block of land in NCD where they could put up a high-rise building to relocate the LTI from its location at the Waigani PNG Institute of Public Administration (PNG IPA).
She said her office was working closely with the Lands Department to achieve this.
Mogish is “hopeful” this will be achieved within five years but said, “to be realistic, this major project may span 10 years”.
She said the LTI had made a submission to Department of Personnel Management for a revised organisational restructure for an increased staff ceiling to 77 from 33.
The LTI was started in the early 1970s and graduated its first student lawyers in 1973.
Among its first six graduates was the late chief justice Sir Mari Kapi and late judge Tomarum Konilio. The other four graduates of that batch were retired judge Greg Lay, William Kaputin, Misac Rangai and Theodore Miriung.
She said from 1973 to last year, the institute had passed out 1,544 students.
Mogish said the LTI had graduates from PNG, Australia, Germany, Scotland, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Kiribati.
The LTI took in 72 students this year.