Novel Laws To Fit The People

From a Port Moresby correspondent

Papua New Guinea may experiment with a novel system which would provide variations in some laws from place to place.

The system would be designed to recognise customary tribal laws which vary extensively from one end of the country to the other.

The Chief Minister, Mr Somare, supoested the possibility of local variations in law when he introduced a bill in the House of Assembly in Port Moresby on December 2, estab

lishing a five-member commission to examine thoroughly existing law and to recommend changes in the light of a modern, independent PNG.

Mr Somare told the House that most countries which had set up law-reform commissions had allowed the commissions to become the monopoly of lawyers. The govern ment’s proposed commission deli berately avoided this as it believed it was in the best interests of the country.

One of the five commissioners would be concerned with the law as such, but the others would represent economics, political science, social science and “traditional Papua New Guinea values”.

He proposed that the commission would work over a period of many years, recommending the reform of unsuitable existing laws, their replace ment or elimination. Traditional law would also be codified.

Debate on the bill was adjourned.