Village courts face staff issues

 By ABIGAIL APINA

EAST New Britain is still facing staffing issues with village courts in local level governments.

An annual report presented last week in Kokopo by provincial HIV coordinator Elpin Samson said there was a great need for staffing issues to be immediately addressed.

Samson said the village court areas needed to be made known to the people so they knew where to go when faced with issues.

She said they had to ensure that village courts were effective and with the passing of the former provincial village court officer recently, there was a huge task ahead for a new officer carrying on the duties.

She said there was a challenge for a new officer to ensure that implementation of village court functions were effectively done.

Samson said the endorsement of any new village court areas by the provincial executive council should be done away with because there was a lack of substantial work done to show effectiveness due to absence of officers.

She said it would be better for any village court area officer to be appointed under the ceiling of a village court area.

She said it should be balanced by appointing female officers to share the responsibility with male officers.

Samson said many village courts in the province were not being involved effectively in village court refresher trainings.

She urged relevant authorities in the province to ensure that refresher trainings were compulsory for all village court officers.