Court asked to lift ban on Finance report

June 10, 2010- The National 

By JULIA DAIA BORE

THE National Court has been asked to lift the ban placed on the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Department of Finance and Treasury.

Since the inquiry report was tabled in Parliament in March, a judge had placed a ban on its publication and implementation of its recommendations.

Justice Bernard Sakora issued this ban while granting leave for a judicial review, following an urgent application by former solicitor-general Zachery Gelu and lawyer Paul Paraka.
Justice Sakora made the decisions in Alotau, when he was on circuit there.

Appearing for the state before Justice Mark Sevua on Monday, Scholastica Nepel of Jerowai Lawyers, argued that the interim injunction stopping further dealings of the final inquiry report was “an encroachment” by the judiciary into the prerogative role of the executive arm of the government who had instituted the Commission of Inquiry into the Finance Department.

Nepel said the Prime Minister presented the report in the national Parliament on March 4, 2010, and this was to be followed by the implementation of the recommendations of the office of the Chief Secretary Manasupe Zurenuoc.

She said there were irregularities in the orders granted by Justice Sakora on March 6, and the orders should be set aside.

Nepel submitted that when the leave application seeking the interim injunction was made and granted in Alotau, there was “no returnable date’ set in the orders that were granted which is a National Court rules requirement when dealing with interim injunctive orders against another party.

In response, lawyers for Paraka and Gelu submitted that there was an urgency which prompted their client to seek the interim injunction.
They said there was an intention to publish excerpts of the final report in a Sunday newspaper, which prompted them to take urgent action on March 6 before Justice Sakora in Alotau.