Deputy Opposition Leader and Chuave MP Hon. James Nomane spoke to the media after the Supreme Court session on Monday at the Waigani National Court House.
Mr Nomane challenged the Prime Minister and the government to stop the delay tactics and deal with the vote on no confidence head-on.
“On Monday, June 29th 2024, the opposition came to the Supreme Court, so it was a full court, five men bent, to basically have the application of the first intervener, the Attorney General, which sought to set aside the orders of Judge Derek Hartshorn of July 19th, which was to have the substantive matter heard on the 1st of August.”
“So after having listened to all arguments, the full court of the Supreme Court has reserved their decision for Wednesday the 31st to either set aside the decision of Judge Hartshorn to have the substantive matter heard on the 1st of August or allow it to proceed.”
Mr Nomane also explained why a small number of the small number of Opposition members in attendance on Monday, as compared to previous hearings in this VONC case.
“Now what’s important, what the country can observe now, is the Opposition has come to court with myself, the Deputy Opposition Leader, and just three members of the opposition.”
“The Honourable Amos Hakem, member for Laigap, the Honourable Kasimiru Aya, the member for Goelala, and the Honourable Masoho Abe, the member for Middle Fly.”
“So, where’s the rest of the opposition?”
“Well, they’re all in their districts trying to provide service delivery and development to the people without having received any DSIP or PSIP funds.”
“So why have members of the opposition being punished and not received any budgetary allocation and that’s preventing them from delivering service delivery to their respective wards and districts and provinces?”
“So, this is why the opposition’s in court, because there’s an absolute breach of the Constitution and this current government under Prime Minister James Marape has failed to uphold the tenets of the Constitution.”
“And you can just see, now the fundamental argument here in court is not about like, you know, we’ve got two more years before the vote of no confidence period lapses, 12 months before the issue of Writs, but we’re talking about the actions in Parliament where they have completely hijacked the process to allow the vote of no confidence to proceed.”
Addressing Prime Monostearate, Mr Nomane asked, “If you claim that you have the numbers, if you’re confident that you’re doing the right thing by the country, then why are we playing all these games?”
“Why are we even in court?”
“You should allow the vote of no confidence to take place on the floor of Parliament and test your numbers.”
“We expect that the full court will make the decision on Wednesday to allow the substantive matter to be heard on the 1st, so we can have Parliament recalled in August, so that we can allow the vote of no confidence to proceed and we can appoint a new Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea to get the country back on track.”
“That’s the whole reason why we came to court on Monday morning, because our good friends on the other side are trying to play simple delay tactics.”
“We’ve had enough of delay tactics!”
“The country’s had enough!”
“That’s why we came to court.”
“We won’t pre-empt any decision of the full court, and we’ll allow them to make the decision and we’ll be back on Wednesday to receive the outcome of the Supreme Court decision.”