The Papa Village is a recipient of a Community Village Court House donated by ExxonMobil PNG (EMPNG).
EMPNG stated that the Low set building is currently being used by the Papa community to conduct Village Court sittings by the village court magistrate.
“This new Village Court House has positively strengthened the law and justice system and has given structure and credibility to the village court setting and court officials to do their job diligently and proactively,” EMPNG stated.
Papa village Court Magistrate Teddy Vani said that before getting this village courthouse, they have been listening to cases under trees or houses, and it is a dream come true for them as this will make it easy for them to conduct their work, and it will improve their work to strengthen the law and justice system in the village.
Magistrate Vani said that the new village courthouse has boosted their work, and they now can hear cases from morning till the afternoon or much later where they deal with more than six (6) cases every Tuesday.
“We deal with civil cases where we can refer them to the district court but because we are at the village level we try our best to resolve these cases at the village level and maintain it. The main challenge is that we have drug and alcohol cases with sleepless nights due to noise pollution that is caused by the drunkards or what we call the boombox generation that villagers and elders dislike.
So, with the new village courthouse donated by ExxonMobil, we can get these people and deal with them and if we need to refer them, we will do it,” Magistrate Vani said.
Magistrate Vani added that with the new courthouse he is not using the community police, but he is utilizing the village chief and councilors to deal with the law-and-order issues in the village.
Village Chief Nao Nao said that he is delighted that ExxonMobil has provided the village with a new courthouse because it was a very sad sense to see the Magistrate trying to conduct his job under a tree or under a house.
“The new building now gives our Magistrate a good working environment to do his job, and we really appreciate what ExxonMobil has done for us. Now our village Magistrate can sit under a propre courthouse and conduct his job and not under the tree trying to hide from the heat of the sun,” Mr. Nao said.