Public solicitors’ in-house training starts

The public solicitor’s office today commenced its first of a series of in-house training for its lawyers this year.

Public solicitor lawyers from all over the country, including lawyers at its headquarters, are attending this three-day training at Holiday Inn, Port Moresby.  

The public solicitor’s office was established by the Government to provide legal aid to the general public who cannot afford hefty legal fees from private law firms.

The office has some of the most committed lawyers helping the general public. 

Acting public solicitor, Leslie Mamu, said: “The vision of the public solicitor’s office is to provide legal aid for our people. We refer to them as the impecunious of our society, in other words, those small people that cannot afford the lofty bills of private lawyers. So the office was established for them.”

Because of these lawyers’ commitment to serve the public, it is important that they are equipped with the right skills and knowledge.

This is where these workshops come in.

Mamu said the training is purposely for capacity building.

“The training today, tomorrow and Wednesday is for lawyers. It is mainly on law, various aspects of legal practice.

“The sessions that are laid out for the three days are to build capacity in various practices concerned with our clients.”

In this morning’s session, Justice Goodwin Poole spoke on matrimonial law.

While the office has been handling a lot of these cases, a new trend has emerged from inter-racial marriages.

Mamu said: “We have cases where Papua New Guinean women are married to expatriates and where marriages don’t work out, we have properties involved, children and often the children are taken away from their mothers to overseas.

“This area is a new area for our lawyers so Justice Goodwin Poole, who is an expert in this area, has given us his time to share his experience and knowledge to assist our lawyers and prepare them for this new trend of cases coming into the office.”

Other speakers will include senior lawyers from within the public solicitor’s and other judges, including Justice Les Gavara-Nanu.

Author: 
Charmaine Poriambep