Transcript
LAWRENCE STEPHENS: A long and involved and difficult story, a very typical PNG story. It's good to see the courts upholding the law. It's disappointing of course that the law takes so long in so many of these things. The case has been around for ages. The information's been with us for ages. And unfortunately we've been chasing after details of an arrest warrant when in fact the problem has been the money that was paid and shouldn't have been paid.
JOHNNY BLADES: This arrest warrant has been shown as being defective, yet a couple of years ago the Chief Justice did make a ruling in one of these cases which was associated with the arrest warrant where he upheld its validity. This was in 2015... so what's the difference now, do you know?
LS: Actually I don't know that particular case, but you mentioned that it was the Chief Justice. In this case we have a Supreme Court ruling, we have at least three judges involved in a decision saying that the arrest warrant was defective. Well, that's the system, that's our legal system in action; and the thoughts of a bench of judges as opposed to one judge tends to be a collection of the thoughts of wise men, and we would hope that they've got it right. That is less of an issue to me than the delay in seeing justice done, and the reality that chasing after this defective warrant has distracted people from the real matter. The real matter is covered in the Finance (department) inquiry (2006- 2009) and that has to do with incredible, damaging leakages from the Finance area.
JB: Peter O'Neill's statement following this latest ruling sort of alludes to that again, and - as he has done in the past - he has suggested that the previous government under Sir Michael Somare was to blame, and that there was a context to all this kind of stuff happening then. So it's just one matter in a number of matters where state funds were being misused, allegedly?
LS: Yeah, and ongoing matters, and one should not be distracted by people saying this happened under a previous government when many of the people who will make those comments were part of the previous government where the problems occurred. The reality is that on both sides of the parliament, and where ever people are sitting, we have people who have been involved in - at a policy level and an administrative level - matters resulting in theft or misuse of public funds. Pur attention was brought to these issues by the Finance Department commission of inquiry, and the reality is we are not getting closer to a solution to that. And the reality is that a decision to pay a law firm funds which we are told it should not have paid went ahead, and appears to have gone ahead with assistance of the PM and other people, and that is a very serious situation for us to be in. we actually need respect for the commissions of inquiry.
JB: Do you expect this will be the end of that matter regarding that particular payment?
LS: Anoter one of the tragedies of Papua new Guinea, Johnny, is that that can be the case, but no, I would not expect it to be the end. The matter was raised. The matter is public. The matter is something which required serious attention and that attention needs to be given to it.And we should not allow it to simply fade away.
JB: The prime minister has repeatedly described the arrest warrant as part of a political witch-hunt since the original complaint was laid with police by then opposition leader Belden Namah in early 2014. Do you place much stock in that?
LS: From where we sit, it's most definitely an issue of concern to the whole population. It's an easy line to use to say this is a political witch-hunt, when in fact it's an issue of concern right across the community. I don't think I would give much credence to the assertion that it's people with political agendas who are pushing this. I would suggest that this is just one of the cases that we need to focus on, and it happens to be a case into which the prime minister's name has been dragged. But it's a major case, and needs focus, just as cases that Belden Namah has been involved in also need focus on.
