Lawyers representing the Prime Minster Peter O’Neill yesterday filed two motions before the National Court against Chairman of the Task Force Sweep team Sam Koim.
PM’s lawyer Tiffany Twivey made this known in court today (March 3) however they are yet to serve both notice motions on Koim.
The first motion filed is to ask the court to punish Koim on contempt allegations as he breached an order of July 16,2014 against discussing matters relating to the Task Force Sweep Team in the media.
The second motion also filed yesterday by the Prime Minister’s lawyers is asking the National Court to summarily dismiss the entire judicial review proceeding filed by Sam Koim.
They are seeking contempt charges against Koim after he ran a full page advert on Nov 18 last year in the National newspaper outlining the progressive investigations of cases the Task Force Sweep team worked on.
The TFS team was disbanded in an NEC decision in 2014, however that has been stayed by the National Court pending the outcome of this very Judicial Review proceeding that has been in court for the past two years.
Here the Prime Minister’s lawyer filed the motion seeking contempt charges against Koim again after the National Court on Feb 23 found that the previous motion was incompetent.
It was found to be incompetent by Justice Collin Makail as the process the PM invoked was found to be improper as it was not filed under the correct National Court rules.
For the first motion, they are also asking the court to deal with the contempt allegations first before the trial to determine the validity of the disbanding of the TFS team.
Both motions will be heard in court on March 10.
Meanwhile, the substantive review trial of the validity of the disbanding of the Task Force Sweep has been fixed to be heard on April 13.
(Picture: Left File picture is Prime Minister’s lawyers Tiffany Twivey and Mal Varitimos. Right is Sam Koim and his lawyer McRonald Nale outside the court house in February.)