A five men Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika will deliver their ruling today on whether the Opposition Leader Douglas Tomuriesa has legal standing to bring the Supreme Court application relating to the Vote of No-Confidence motion.
The Opposition Leader, along with Deputy Opposition Leader James Nomane, SineSine Yongumugl MP Kerenga Kua, and several other Opposition members including Alternate Prime Minister nominee Rainbo Paita were in court to hear the outcome of Thursday’s hearing.
After the judges sat down, Greg Sheppard, senior counsel for Mr Tomuriesa, told the court that an objection to competency had been filed by the Attorney General Pila Niningi, however the court was of the view that it was an ‘eleventh hour’ application because it was filed and served just Wednesday afternoon.
The court also said the issue at hand was on legal standing, and the objection related to the merits of the application, which they were not at that stage yet.
Legal counsel for Speaker of Parliament was also berated for handing in extracts of their submissions on Thursday in court without asking for leave from court to do so.
Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika told him it was contemptous in nature, when consensual directions was for these to be filed on a previous date.
As the morning progressed, the judges kept on asking both counsels for the Speaker and the Attorney General, who was also present in court, to provide one reason as to why the Opposition Leader had no legal standing.
“I need to hear one reason, one reason, I’m asking for only one reason, not ten or twenty, just one.”
Counsel for the Speaker offered up a ‘he is a busy body’ reason to which the Chief Justice reminded him that the Opposition Leader was a member of Parliament, and as Opposition Leader, had a duty to speak on matters of national importance such as the debate on the VONC issue.
Dane Mel, legal counsel for the Attorney General argued that the laws, rules and processes of the VONC motion has already been interpreted and set in a previous similar precedent case – 2016 case Polye vs Zurenoc.
However Justice David Cannings said that line of argument was going into the merits of the case, in which the Opposition Leader in his grounds wants to know if these precedent was breached in this current VONC motion.
After over an hour, the court reserved its ruling for this morning, Friday June 28th at 9:30am.
Outside the court, Opposition Leader Douglas Tomuriesa appealed to the public to remain calm, and allow the process to be heard.
“We ask that you restrain from anything that you may want to do with regards to this
case.”
“This is before the courts, and let’s respect the courts and allow the courts to make
their decision.”
“I want to thank our lawyers, I want to thank the Deputy Opposition Leader, Hon. James Nomane, the Alternate Prime Minister nominee, Hon. Paita, Hon. Kerenga Kua, and all the Opposition Members, Members of Parliament who are here with us, who continue to support our case.”
“We feel comfortable.”
“There’s no pressure on our end, and we will allow the wisdom of our lawyers to take us through.”
“I call upon again the people of Papua New Guinea that we are standing up strong for our country and we’ll make sure that there is a better Papua New Guinea and a better new generation of this nation.”
“We thank God for all the blessings for this nation.”
“And we know that through God alone, all things are possible for this nation.”
“And thank you again, many of you, for waiting for us.”
His lawyer Greg Sheppard told media that he did not want to say anything.
“I don’t want to predict the outcome for today.”
“So let’s just possess ourselves in patience and wait.”
The Attorney General Pila Niningi, who is also the Justice Minister, along with his legal counsel also spoke to the media, stating that if the court does not declare the Opposition Leader, as having legal standing, then that would be the end of the case.