The Papua New Guinea opposition faced yet another delay in the hearing of their special reference case to recall parliament when the Attorney General Pila Niningi and Parliament Speaker Job Pomat filed an objection to competency application in court.
This application took precedence Thursday with a decision reserved for a later date.
The five-men bench headed by Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, did not proceed with the substantive matter, rather it had to hear arguments from the lawyers representing the interveners Attorney General Pila Niningi and the Speaker of Parliament Joe Pomat for the objection to competency application.
The application sought to find out why the members of the Opposition walked out of Parliament on the 5th of June when parliament met and a Vote of No Confidence was taken. The interveners ague that members of the opposition should have rather dealt with the VONC in Parliament and not take the matter to the courts.
Outside of Court, Opposition Leader Douglas Tomuriesa said they came to court with the view that they would proceed with the substantive matter but the interveners came up with the objection to competency application.
“The Chief Justice has made it clear due to the urgency of the case that they will fast track their decision. There was a delay in the substantive matter and again today. We will respect the court’s decision to wait patiently for them to make the decision so that we will go straight to the substantive matter
“The people of Papua New Guinea are waiting for that decision on the substantive matter.
“We are confident that we will get to that substantive matter so we are calling on the people of PNG to be patient and allow the courts to make that decision,” he said.
Meanwhile, Niningi thanked the five-men bench for allowing the application to be heard in court.
“I believe that we have made a strong submission and we await the court’s decision,” Niningi said.
