... PNG doesn't know if it has one or not!

From Percy Chatterton

in Port Moresby When Panna New Guinea’* Hrmce

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for a two weeks ration of sittings it had before it the task of comnletlng debate on the Consti utional Sain nf

Committee's Si? of

chapters had been disnosed of at earher meetings* nine remained to be debated remamed to be 1 r • w . , , Wisely, Chief Minister Michael bomare decided to postpone discus- S 1( f n +i? n tbe 9°^ tentlous chapters and get the remainder cleared out of the way nrst. In this way, chapters on financial control, the Ombudsman commission, the Public Service, the ervic 9, s and on . G en cr a l and Miscellaneous were quickly disposed of, with few modifications to he report as amended by the Government s wmte paper.

However, on one important point— the political activities of public servants—the Opposition secured, by one vote, the insertion of restrictions additional to those proposed by the government. The government’s position was that public servants should be encouraged to become politically active and that they should be allowed to join political parties but

not to hold executive positions in them.

The restrictions added at the instanc e of the Opposition were: that il shall be an offence for a P ublic ? e^ vant to use his official position to mfl uence another person m favour of the political party or relation of which he is a member ’ that no publlc servant who is a member of a pol,tlcal P art V or a ssociation shall be associated with the conduct of any election except in the capacity of a scrutineer; and that membership of a particular party or association shall not be taken into account in the promotion or transfer of public servants.

One of the major issues on which the CPC report and the government’s white paper were at loggerheads was that of the position of “Head of State”. In Chapter 7 (The Executive), the CPC recommended against there being an office of “Head of State” as such. It considered that ultimate authority should rest with the executive, and that purely formal functions, such as giving assent to bills, should be carried out by the Speaker.

The government disagreed, and the showdown came when Chapter 7 was debated. The result was a very handsome win for the government, the voting being 48-18.

So there will be a Head of State; he will be elected by an absolute majority of parliament and will be subject to the advice of the National Executive Council, The government also won, though with a margin of only two votes, on the second contentious issue in Chapter 7. The CPC had recommend ed that when the Constitution became law the present ministry should resign, to be re-elected or replaced by the House.

There was considerable support for this proposal among opposition mem bers who, though happy enough with Mr Somare as chief minister, are less happy about some members of his ministerial team. However, when the chips were down the government scraped home in a vote of 38-36.

Chapter 8, on the Administration of Justice, produced conflict only on secondary issues such as the com position of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission and the method of appointment of judges. The debate on this chapter, however, did produce one anomaly.

Previously, when the House had been considering Chapter 14 (the disciplined Forces), it had accepted an opposition amendment giving police prosecutors freedom from interference by the Executive. Any control of