When is it a holiday, when it is not?

OP/ED

Holiday, according to our understanding, is period of time when one is not at work. It is a time when one spend his or her time away from work, or the time he or she spend traveling or resting at home or somewhere where he or she is not working for a reward.

Now, stepping aside is totally different from taking a holiday. Stepping aside or stepping down, if we are not wrong, is when someone leaves an important job or position and allow someone or somebody else take his or her place. For example, Joe Blow steps aside as general manager of Waigar Corporation to let someone else take his place.

So when our father, the Grand Chief, Sir Michael Somare announced that he was stepping aside as Prime Minister, Papua New Guineans accepted that their leader had to take that radical decision because of the impending leadership tribunal that is to probe into charges relating to misconduct in office against him.

Now Sir Michael is not a lawyer or an expert in constitutional law, so when he handed over the reins to a young Sam Abal, Papua New Guineans accepted what he did, for they believed that he was doing the right thing. The chief must clear his name.

It is only later when we learnt that what Sir Michael did was in fact wrong. According to legal advice, and the same point has been raised by the Opposition, the PM cannot step down or step aside.

This was not created for in the National Constitution. When Sir Michael did that, he in fact created a constitutional crisis. Prominent lawyers in this country agreed that the PM created a situation that was not provided for in the National Constitution but they did not tell us what Sir Michael need to do next to avoid or rectify the situation.

The question that begs to be answered is this. Were the legal advisors that surround the PM aware of this? We are of the view that the Opposition is right in demanding that the legal advisors to Sir Michael be sacked. Yes, sack all of them, we say. This is not the only time when the government gets it wrong.

The thing that puzzles us now is when Acting Prime Minister Sam Abal gets up and tells us that Sir Michael was on “holiday” and he will resume duty any time when he feels like. Come on, Mr Abal, Papua New Guineans are not that stupid. Are you telling us that we do not know the difference between a holiday and about stepping aside?

Our people are already confused about what had transpired in the last few weeks and they do not need this. Sir Michael did not go on holiday and allowed you to run the country as Acting PM, to tell the truth. He stepped aside because he was being referred to the leadership tribunal but what he was not told was that he could not step down until a tribunal was appointed by the Chief Justice of the land.

Sir Salamo Injia has not appointed a tribunal yet and he will most probably do that after 31 January, when the Courts resume work for 2011. When that happens, Sir Michael should step down but then again, the legal advice he took was not good. Just who advised him?

We shall never know but this person or persons should be referred to the PNG Law Society. If they are politicians, then they should hold their head in shame. We are sure there are ways that they can be dealt with.

We are told that Sir Michael will resume duty next Monday. That is good; in fact, a lot of people are demanding that he comes back.

He is needed for the election of the new Governor General; he also needs to sort out the issues with the National Alliance Party highlands bloc and the management of the supplementary budget. After all, he created these problems and he must deal with them