A five-men Supreme Court bench will hand its decision today at 1:30pm on the Attorney-General's objection to competency application to the Opposition's Vote of No Confidence (VONC) court application which has yet to be substantively heard. The five-men bench comprising of Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, Justice Les Gavera Nanu, Justice David Canning, Justice Panuel Mogish and Justice Derek Hartshorn will deliberate on the arguments and urgently inform the lawyers from both parties due to the importance of the matter. Last week, lawyers representing the Speaker and Attorney General objected to the competency of the substantive application. They raised numerous grounds but the applicant’s (Opposition) lawyers responded saying that the objection itself was not only incompetent in that it was filed out of time, but it was also an abuse of process because they are prevented, by the court, from raising competency issues after standing as it occurred. This is on the point that the grounds raised in the objection are similar to the grounds raised in the statement of response. The Chief Justice and his 5 men bench have made it very clear that due to the urgency of the case the Court will try its best to fast track the hearing and hand down a decision. Opposition Leader Douglas Tomuresia last week after the court hearing at Waigaini appealed to the public to remain patient and respect the outcome of the court process.