Village Courts under review

PEOPLE in Western Highlands villages are being affected by the suspension of village courts.
All 116 village courts were suspended six weeks ago to allow for an overdue review.
 The suspension had forced people to seek help from police, however, they had been turned away because these were village court matters.
Metropolitan commander Chief Insp John Kale said police only recorded civil matters.
Kale said in a week police received about 30 civil and criminal matter complaints.
He said they had used up many of their daily occurrence books just to get the complaints.
He said many complaints received were civil matters involving domestic problems involving couples. 
Provincial law and order chairman David Maip said the review into the village court system was underway as directed by the magisterial service in order to have an effective court system in the province.
He said after review is completed next week, the names of the village court officials would go through the provincial executive council before being gazette.
He said there was no review conducted in the past by the successive provincial governments and as a result, some people illegally appointed themselves as officials and collected pay under the names of those gazette officials who passed away.
Maip said under the leadership of Governor Tom Olga, new village courts were set up in remote areas like Mt Haw in South Waghi and Mintip on the borders of Dei and Jimi districts.
He said village courts would resume at the end of the month and only recognised officials would be paid their monthly allowances.