Work begins on community justice centre

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By Elizabeth Vuvu

RABAUL, in East New Britain, is the fourth district in the country building a community justice service centre, says Department of Justice and Attorney General, Dr Lawrence Kalinoe.
A ground breaking ceremony to build the centre was held yesterday at the district headquarters at Kurakakaul. It was officiated by Kalinoe, Rabaul MP Dr Allan Marat, provincial administrator Wilson Matava and Rabaul district administrator Marakan Uvano. Kalinoe received K400,000 funding from Marat as per a memorandum of understanding between the two parties and gave an assurance that his department would provide K800,000 for the centre to be established before the end of the year.
He said once established the centre would be a one-stop shop in the district to ensure justice services were monitored, supervised, accounted for and made accessible to the people in the communities.
He said there was a need to monitor the work of village court officials and land mediators by a coordinator based at the centre who would work in consultation with the district administrator to account for their work on a daily basis.
“We need clear visibility of the work village court officials do in each district,” he said.
Kalinoe said coordination and respect for the presence of law and order was not evident in the communities.
“When we release people on parole there is no effective supervision to ensure that they are abiding by their conditions.”
He said alcohol, homebrew and drug issues were causing many problems in society.
He said the Government has mandated the department to deal with narcotics problems and the centre would tackle marijuana consumption and cultivation with the help of police.