Sir Salamo reveals plan for judges in provinces

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By HELEN TARAWA
SEVEN provinces currently without a resident judge will have one each assigned within the next five years, says Chief Justice Salamo Injia, picture.
This will bring the total number of judges to around 80, he said.
Sir Salamo told The National that all provinces, except West Sepik, Manus, Northern, Western, Gulf, Jiwaka and Central, did not have judges because they lacked proper facilities for them.
“Our plan is to have judges in all the provinces in the next five years. There’s a questionmark around Central because they do not have any headquarters,” he said.
“We have full facilities for judges in the rest of the provinces. The Daru-based judge will look after Kerema until the workload reaches a point where they will be assigned their own judge,” he said.
Sir Salamo said Jiwaka would be covered by the judge in Western Highlands until they had their own headquarters.
“We will have most complete judges in the provinces by 2022. For that kind of expense we need an extra 10 judges,” he said.
“We are looking at 60 to 80 judges. So we will be asking the Government to increase the judges from current 42 to 80. That will mean we have to build facilities.
“Of the current facilities we have in Daru, Popondetta, Vanimo and Lorengau, we can put the judges there but we need to find accommodation for the judge and staff. We are looking at building one-stop complexes because the current facilities are not enough to complete a full national court,” he said.
Sir Salamo said they were down by two judges.
“We have to fill the three vacancies before the year is up. That will give us the total number of judges up to 44,” he said.
He said there were 39 fulltime judges and five acting ones.