Perform and protect, police told

National, Normal

POLICE are in the frontline of the judiciary system and must perform, or the country will face a disaster, Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia said.
Speaking at the official opening of the legal year in Wabag, Enga province, last Friday Sir Salamo said policemen and women must work well with Correctional Service officers to protect the community.
“If the policemen and women do not do their job, other law enforcing bodies including lawyers, magistrates, judges and the rest who are in between would do little,” he said.
Sir Salamo said the police must hold their heads high with honesty and dignity to enforce the promise of protecting the country and its people that they made when passing out of the police college.
He said with the changes in technology making crimes more sophisticated, the roles of the law enforcing bodies was challenging and the police were expected to put extra effort to tackle the new trend of crimes.
Sir Salamo also took the opportunity to introduce the new resident judge for Wabag, Justice Graham Ellis.
Justice Ellis replaces Justice Nema Yalo, who has been transferred to Lae.
Sir Salomo said Justice Ellis, an Australian, was a former judge in the National Supreme Court in the country and was based in Rabaul before he left to practice law in Sydney, Australia, as a senior counsel.
He was later brought in by the Government recently to assist on important legal matters.
Sir Salamo said Justice Ellis had agreed when he asked him to return on the bench in light of the shortage of judges in the country.
Other judges who attended the ceremony were Mt Hagen-based judges, Justice Collin Makail and Justice Allen David.