Maru’s case before high court

 By ELIAS NANAU

COMMERCE Minister Richard Maru is not out of the woods yet as far as the election petition against his win in the 2012 general election is concerned.

He won the Yangoru-Saussia open seat in East Sepik. And the legal tussle this time is in the Supreme Court. 

Petitioner and former MP Peter Wararu Waranaka filed a Supreme Court leave application for review after his petition was earlier dismissed for being incompetent in the National Court in Wewak.

The contested legal issue before Deputy Chief Justice Gibbs Salika last Friday was whether Maru was qualified to contest the seat by leaving work earlier than his four-year contract as the managing director of the National Development Bank expired.

Wararu argued through his lawyer Moses Murray that he only served two years and 11 months and the revocation of his appointment should go through the National Executive Council.

Murray said Maru was a “high level public servant” of a statutory organisation and he came under the public service general orders too.

He said Maru was to resign six months before the elections.

A National Court judge who dismissed Waranaka’s petition said Maru’s employment was governed by the National Development Bank Act and that he was not a public servant.

But Murray said the NDB was “a service organisation by the government”.

He said the National Development Bank Act was not consistent with the Constitution that created the NEC, which created the bank.

Waranaka also argued that there were also serious illegal practices, irregularities and omissions that needed to be tried by evidence which the judge failed to consider.

Justice Salika will make a ruling in two weeks.

Maru’s lawyer Paul Paraka said there was no mandatory requirement that he had to resign.

Electoral Commission lawyer Harvey Nii agreed with Paraka but added that the public service orders on resignation was an “administrative provision which was not mandatory”.