A five-man bench has dismissed an application filed by Prime Minister James Marape to stop the leader of Opposition, Belden Namah, from disputing Marape’s election as Prime Minister.
Namah, in his capacity as the Opposition leader, had sought court declaration over the legality of Marape’s election on May 30, 2019.
Prime Minister Marape’s election to the government’s top post remains a Supreme Court matter after a five-man bench dismissed his application to stop Namah from disputing his election as Prime Minister.
In a grueling six hours of court hearing, clocking in at 9:30am, Deputy Chief Justice Ambeng Kandakasi, Justice Panuel Mogish, Justice George Manuhu, Justice David Cannings and Justice Jeffery Shepard rejected two submissions filed by Marape’s lawyer, McRonald Nale, and lawyer representing Speaker of Parliament Job Pomat.
The former was an injunction against private lawyer Greg Sheppard from representing Namah; the latter was regarding an abuse of process by Namah to refile the court application against Marape.
Justice Kandakasi said the bench was not persuaded.
In the third submission, Nale argued that Namah was suspended by the Leadership Tribunal on the 9th of April, 2018, for contempt of court, and thus still remains suspended from office.
However, Sheppard told the court that the Leadership Tribunal’s decision was stayed by the National Court in July of 2018.
The court moved to give a ruling on the competency of this application on Friday 29th May, 2020.