The lack of consultation on new legislations with the court magistrates is having an effect on how cases are disposed of in the district courts.
A legislation that was recently passed is the National Information and Communication Technology (NICTA) Act.
Committal Courts in Waigani have seen a huge increase in the number of cases brought before the courts from offences like posting offensive, insulting and defamatory remarks on Facebook to sending offensive text messages.
Some of these cases get withdrawn while others get struck out.
Loop PNG has been actively covering cases under the NICTA act in the Committal Courts and most go pending because magistrates are not sure who the prosecuting authority is for offences laid under the act.
The uncertainty remains between NICTA, the office of the Public Prosecutor and Police Prosecution team.
Most have either been dismissed on technical grounds or struck out because police investigating officers failed to produce their investigation files on time.
Chief Magistrate Nerrie Eliakim says the lack of consultation with the Magisterial Service, prior to the drafting and passing of new legislations, is one reason why cases under the NICTA Act have not been struck out.
“One of the biggest problems is legislations being put in place without involving the magistrates in consultation. You find that some of these legislations, the new jurisdictions that come in, have some specifications that are new to the magistrates,” she went on to say.
“After the team working on the legislation had passed it, they should have workshopped that piece of legislation with our magistrates.
“Because the people who are going to be determining these cases are the district court magistrates,” Eliakim added.
The Chief Magistrate said it would be better to workshop new legislations with magistrates before they can deal with those cases efficiently and effectively in court.
“No one has approached me, I am still waiting for someone to come and approach me on how we can deal with these,” she added.
(Chief Magistrate Nerrie Eliakim and her magistrates in discussion during the workshop yesterday. Picture by Kennedy Bani)