The Legal year for Madang Province opened with a parade that started at the town police station and concluded at the Memorial Lutheran Church for an ecumenical service.
Themed ‘Enhancing delivery of Justice through technological innovation’, the legal year in the province was officially opened by Justice Dr. Vergil Narokobi.
Justice Narokobi in his remarks, firstly commended the police and joint forces for maintaining law and order in the province during the events of Wednesday January 10. He said it gave the public, business houses and investors confidence to maintain normal operations.
He encouraged the disciplined forces to continue to uphold the rule of law without fear or favour, which remains difficult due to Papua New Guinea’s close knit society, where everyone relates to each other or knows each other as friend or family. Without having to tarnish relative ties, he encouraged members of the Law and Justice sector to remain firm towards their duties to ensure a peaceful, just and safe society.
Justice Narokobi also took to the pulpit to elaborate on the theme of the event, saying the Law and Justice Sector is using technology to enhance the delivery of justice.
“I chose this theme for one main reason - the need to have accurate, and reliable statistics to help decision makers,” he said.
The current pilot project in Madang being implemented is the Integrated Criminal Case Management System Database (ICCMSD), which tracks a case from the point of arrest to the actual disposition of the case. This ensures every case has a record from the police station complaint, to the court’s records from hearings. Finally the records goes to the Correctional Institution if a person is being sentenced.
If one thing, Papua New Guinea lacks many basic and updated statistics ranging from health, education, census and demographics which can contribute to meaningful and tangible development and delivery of services to the people. Justice Narokobi said that with accurate data given to decision makers, it would solve many development and social aspects in the country.
Furthermore, Madang’s Resident Judge acknowledged the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) worldwide and how it can be used to address many problems faced in the country. However, he cautioned that whilst technology can be an indispensable tool, it must never take over our ability to think and analyze facts and make decisions based on shared values of moral and principals.
Also speaking at the ceremony, Fridolin Kambibel, the Senior Provincial Magistrate insisted on having a court’s user forum to highlight many discrepancies within the sector.