The Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea has been the highest court of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

 since 16 September 1975, replacing the pre-Independence Supreme Court (corresponding to the post-Independence National Court) and the overseas appellate tribunals from 1902 to 1975 of the High Court of Australia

High Court of Australia

The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...

 and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is one of the highest courts in the United Kingdom. Established by the Judicial Committee Act 1833 to hear appeals formerly heard by the King in Council The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) is one of the highest courts in the United...

. Judges of the pre-Independence Supreme Court automatically became the justices of the National Court and accordingly among the pool of judges available to be empanelled as a Supreme Court bench.

"Full Court" of the National Court

Not separately constituted, it is an appellate committee or "full court" of the National Court, which is the superior-level trial court; judges of the National Court form panels of the Supreme Court on an ad hoc basis to hear appeals from the National Court and from assorted administrative tribunals as well as to hear references in the Court's original jurisdiction.

Reference jurisdiction and the separation of powers

In the latter case the court is, strictly speaking, not exercising a judicial function but rather, pursuant to the ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Attorney-General of Ontario v. Attorney-General of Canada (Reference Appeal) [1912] AC 571, one of advising the executive branch of government, a jurisdiction expressly conferred on the Supreme Court by PNG's Constitution. Other jurisdictions, notably the USA (federally, though not in all States) and Australia, eschew the reference function for their courts on the grounds that it violates the principle of the separation of powers as among the legislative, executive and judiciary; in Canada it is held that the principle is inapplicable in a parliamentary democracy.

The constitutional convention which deliberated on the drafting of Papua New Guinea's Constitution immediately prior to Independence took counsel from Canadian academics and the reference procedure was readily adopted. In Papua New Guinea jurisprudence, as in Australia, the formula "separation of powers" is frequently referred to. However, as in Australia (and unlike in the USA where the principle was enunciated and where the executive is not responsible to the legislature) it has a special limited application, being confined to describing the well-established convention of an independent judiciary, dating from the English Bill of Rights, 1689: the executive is, of course, responsible to the legislature in Papua New Guinea's Parliament.

Developing the underlying law

The Supreme Court (together with the National Court) has a special responsibility for developing the "underlying law," ie the common law of Papua New Guinea, having resort to those rules of local custom in various regions of the country which may be taken to be common to the whole country. The responsibility has been given additional express warrant in the Underlying Law Act, 2000 which purports to mandate greater attention by the courts to custom and the development of customary law as an important component of the underlying law. In practice the courts have found great difficulty in applying the vastly differing custom of the many traditional societies of the country in a modern legal system and the development of the customary law according to indigenous Melanesian conceptions of justice and equity has been less thorough than may have been anticipated in 1975; the Underlying Law Act does not yet appear to have had significant effect.

Hierarchy of precedent

The hierarchy of case law precedent is that while the Supreme Court has authority to overrule any case authority, its own decisions are binding on the lower courts as are the decisions of the English superior courts prior to PNG's independence, which are deemed to be part of PNG's underlying law. Decisions of the pre-Independence Supreme Court of PNG are deemed to be foreign law, equivalent in authority to decisions by any foreign court with a similar legal system, and of persuasive value only. The principle of the mere persuasiveness of overseas (and pre-Independence PNG) authority vis-à-vis the binding authority of pre-1975 English authority has been applied many times: in, for example, Toglai Apa and Bomai Siune v. The State [1995] PNGLR 43) that it is bound to follow the English case of Rookes v Barnard (House of Lords) [1964] AC 1129; [1964] 1 All ER 367 on the ineligibility of plaintiffs to an award of exemplary damages against ministers of the state or public servants other than in strictly limited circumstances, notwithstanding its having been decisively overruled by both the High Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Chief Justice

The Chief Justice of the National Court is also the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, styled the Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea. The independence of the Bench was tested in 1979 during the Rooney Affair (see Law of Papua New Guinea

Law of Papua New Guinea

The law of Papua New Guinea consists of the Constitution, ordinary statutes enacted by Parliament or adopted at Independence from overseas and judge-made law.-Constitution:...

), whose outcome was the resignation of Sir William Prentice, the second (and expatriate) Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea together with three other expatriate judges.

Sir Buri Kidu

Buri Kidu

Sir Buri Kidu Kt was the first national Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea.-Biography:Buri Kidu was educated at Toowoomba Grammar School, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, where he was School Captain and at the University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland . His entire professional life was spent...

 then became the first national Chief Justice. At the elapse of his ten-year term he was succeeded by Sir Arnold Amet

Arnold Amet

Sir Arnold Amet is a Papua New Guinean politician.He was the Governor of Madang Province from November 2007 to December 2010, whereupon he resigned the position to be appointed Minister for Justice and Attorney General in Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare's Cabinet...

. Amet was succeeded by Sir Mari Kapi

Mari Kapi

Chief Sir Mari Kapi, GCL, KCMG, CBE was a Papua New Guinean judge who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea from August 16, 2003 until his retirement in 2008 due to health regions...

, who served as chief justice from August 16, 2003 until his resignation in 2008 for health reasons. Kapi was succeeded by Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia

Salamo Injia

Sir Salamo Injia Kt is a Papua New Guinean judge. Injia became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea in 2008, succeeding Mari Kapi....

.