Namah applies to dismiss public prosecutor’s appeal

By AILEEN KWARAGU
OPPOSITION leader Belden Namah has applied to the Supreme Court to dismiss a challenge against a lower court’s decision in reinstating him as an MP.
Public Prosecutor Pondros Kaluwin made an appeal in August to review the National Court’s decision that reinstated Namah as an MP and Opposition leader.
Namah’s lawyer Greg Sheppard, from Young and Williams Lawyers, told a three-men bench yesterday that the appeal by Kaluwin was incompetent and the public prosecutor had no standing to start Civil Appeals.
He said the state had also failed to comply with the mandated requirements of Order 10 rules (4) and (3) of the rules to properly invoke the jurisdiction of the court which required copies of all the documents before the judge of the National Court.
Sheppard said on the grounds that the appellants had not filed any evidence to prove that the appeal was effected on the National Court which was a requirement to institute an appeal in the higher court. He added that the appeal was unconstitutional in the circumstance that breached the strict constitutional requirement of the independence of the public prosecutor which was not properly before the court.
Meanwhile, Kaluwin’s lawyer Gibson Geroro, of Geroro Lawyers, told the court that Namah’s application was misconceived.