Legal Training Institute

This award is in honour of the late Ruby Laufa, a former Miss Papua New Guinea queen who passed away on February 11, 2017.

Late Laufa was to go back to complete her studies at the Legal Training Institute when she passed away.

Thus, the Ruby Anne Laufa Award will be presented annually to a young woman who wants to pursue her Legal Training Institute studies so that she can be admitted to the bar as a lawyer.

Laufa was Miss South Pacific PNG for 2012 to 2013.

She was the third runner-up at the regional pageant and was winner in:

Ethel Heagi was among 91 trainees from the Legal Training Institute in Port Moresby who were admitted to practise law last Friday.

She started the journey 12 years ago but withdrew from her first year of studies at UPNG’s School of Law due to financial difficulties.

The 31-year-old, whose mother is from the Botai clan of Hanuabada village, and father from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, joined Air Niugini in 2008 as an in-flight safety officer or flight attendant.

This message was echoed in the hall of the Roselyn Anakapu Hall as the Legal Training Institute saw the graduation of its trainees.

“Integrity is the measure of your profession. Your code of ethics demands it, the Courts demand it. You clients demand it. The Society expects it,” Morobe Governor Kelly Naru told them today.

Naru said he was privileged to have passed through the institution 30 years ago and reminded the students that their integrity defines their total professional conduct.

The 89 lawyer trainees graduated this morning from the institute which included four students from the Solomon Islands.

Chief Justice and Chairman of LTI Counsel Sir Salamo Injia told the students to let the law take its course, especially when violence was becoming prevalent in societies in solving problems.

“Let the law take its course, don’t take the law into your own hands. The rule of law rests with obedience to the rule of law,” he said.

For the fifteenth consecutive year, the LTI has invited members of the Victorian Bar to travel from Melbourne to Port Moresby to share their skills and experience pro-bono with 96 law students in the week-long civil and criminal advocacy program.