Respect courts, police told

 POLICE officers must respect court orders and not use their own discretion to defy them, a magistrate in East New Britain said.

Magistrate George Kerker highlighted this last Friday when directing a police officer to appear at the Kokopo district court on March 30 to explain why he had released a suspect that the court had issued a warrant of arrest to appear in court.

Kerker said the land-related case was between two parties at Open Bay.

The two parties appeared in court last Friday and the court was advised that a suspect served with the warrant of arrest was supposed to appear but was released by the police officer on a K1,000 security fee.

“The courts have stressed that any warrant are for courts to deal with and not the duty of police to deal with court documents but should refer them to court.”

Kerker said this was the second case this year of such nature.

“Some police officers tend to go out of their line of duty but they must respect the order of the courts.”