Prosecutors need more training and up-skilling: Officer

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
WITH new laws being passed in Parliament, prosecutors in the country need more training to up-skill themselves to perform their duties correctly and efficiently in accordance with the new laws, a senior officer says. He told a graduating batch of prosecutors at the Bomana Police College in Port Moresby on Friday: “So many court cases are being withdrawn due to a high degree of negligence on the part of prosecutors.”
Legal officer with the national fraud and anti-corruption squad Chief Insp Pare Kuiap, who has many years of experience in the area of prosecution in the force, said there was more to prosecution than just the retention and presentation of court files at the court house.
He told the batch that their duties started from the moment a case file was presented to them until it was presented in court and it was their duty to ensure that all case files were thoroughly checked and filed correctly.
Chief Insp Kuiap said an assessment made had revealed that this was an area that needed a lot of improvement by prosecutors.
He urged the nine prosecutors who had graduated from their six-week prosecution qualifying programme to demonstrate maturity in their work.