Uproar over foreign judges to hear Somare’s case
OSEAH PHILEMON The Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea Sir Salamo Injia has brought in three foreign judges to sit on the leadership tribunal to hear the misconduct charges against Prime Minister Sir Michael Thomas Somare. It will be the first time in the history of Papua New Guinea since it gained independence on 16 September 1975 that a Prime Minister has been charged by the Ombudsman Commission for breaching the Leadership Code, which applies to all leaders. Somare was the chairman of the Constitutional Planning Committee which drew up PNG’s constitution and now he will face the same law he wrote for the newly emerging nation state. The tribunal will consist of Roger Gyles AO, QC, a former judge of the Federal Court of Australia, as chairman; and the members are Sir Bruce Robertson, a former Judge of the Court of Appeal and the high Court of New Zealand; and Sir Robin Auld, a former Lord Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. Injia said the appointments of the