Who pays for the suffering

THE headline in yesterday’s The National, ‘Prison term agony’, is a wake-up call for the authorities to act now. Not all is well with the Papua New Guinea judiciary.
The Amos family suffered for 10 years because a trial judge made the wrong ruling. This is a case involving the death penalty for a father and his son.
There should be an investigation. The Amos family must be fairly compensated for the immeasurable pain and suffering they went through for a whole decade.
Public confidence in the judicial system is fast diminishing.
How vibrant is the Ombudsman Commission in investigating judges?
I believe that a couple of high-profile judicial complaints had been pending for years.
Recent reports have discussed some judicial cases which have raised eyebrows.
The importance of an independent judiciary cannot be over-emphasised.
Everyone loses when the justice system is corrupted – in particular the poor, who are sentenced to death like the Amoses for a crime they did not commit.
Making injustice legal is the dark thread of judicial corruption which is slowly eating away the fabric of our judicial process.

Sela