FINANCE Minister and Tari-Pori MP James Marape yesterday applied in the Supreme Court seeking court order to temporarily stop police from arresting him in connection with the controversial K71.8 million paid to a law firm for legal service rendered to the state.

In his submission in that application, Mr Marape’s lawyer, Robert Leo, said the contempt charge against Police Commissioner Geoffrey Vaki by other police officers is the proof of police persisting the arrest of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

Mr Marape has been implicated along with Mr O’Neill and former Treasurer Don Polye and others in connection with the K71.8 million legal bills paid by the State to the law firm.

Mr Leo submitted that although his client had not been served with any bench warrant or warrant of arrest, as opposed to Prime Minister, his application for interim injunction is to maintain the status quo of the proceedings related to the controversial legal bill paid to the law firm and peace and good order in the community.

Mr Marape is seeking interim injunction to stop police from arresting him pending a Supreme Court appeal and substantive proceedings on taxation he has instituted before the National Court at Waigani.

A Supreme Court appeal was in relation to Justice Ere Kariko’s decision that left the case in the hands of the Police Commissioner to execute or not the warrant of arrest on Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

A taxation proceedings commenced by Mr Marape himself is before Justice Catherine Davani in the National Court.

In that proceeding, the court is to hear and determine whether the legal bills were itemised with costs and taxed accordingly to work done by a law firm implicated to establish the legality of the bills paid.

On Mr Marape’s application for interim injunction to stop police from making arrest on him, all lawyers for the concerned parties involved in the proceeding namely Ms Tiffany Twivey for Prime Minister, Mr Martin Kombri for Paul Paraka Lawyers, Mr Sam Bonner for Police Commissioner Geoffrey Vaki and Mr Ralph Saulep for Attorney-General Ano Pala, consented to Mr Marape’s application.

The flag of the Pacific Community (SPC) flew at half-mast today, next to the French flag, in a show of solidarity with the homage payed by France to the 118 people, of which 54 French nationals, who perished in the crash of Air Algeria flight AH5017 in Mali.

Hosted on French soil in Noumea, New Caledonia, since 1949, the Pacific Community, its Secretariat and staff share the sorrow of the French Nation and the families and friends of the victims. SPC is deeply saddened by this accident, the third in a tragic series over the past two weeks, and wishes to express its most sincere condolences to all those affected and to France, a founding member of the Organisation.

The National Court yesterday issued a permanent stay order stopping the National Executive Council’s (NEC) decision to disband the Investigation Task Force Sweep (ITFS).

This effectively means that ITFS will continue on its investigation work pending the determination of the substantive hearing of the application.

ITFS chairman Sam Koim filed the application in court to review two NEC decisions. The first was on the disbanding of Task Force Sweep and the second was on the establishment of an Interim Office of Anti-Corruption (IOAC) to replace Task Force Sweep.

He named Prime Minister Peter O’Neill as first defendant, NEC as second defendant, Attorney General Ano Pala as third defendant and the State as forth defendant in the proceedings.

Mr Koim also sought a stay of the decisions pending the substantive hearing of the application.

The court issued an interim stay in favour of Mr Koim at the initial hearing and after considering submissions from all parties, granted a permanent stay.

The arguments by the defendants in opposing the application for stay was rejected after the court found that the arguments did not respond to the submissions by the plaintiff on the issue of stay but on the issue of competency of the application.

Presiding judge Justice Les Gavara-Nanu, in a 30-page ruling, found that the application by the plaintiff raised serious arguable cases to be tried and the permanent stay was necessary to maintain the status quo.

The judge found amongst others that the abolishment of ITFS was done with immediate effect which could subsequently cause hardship, inconvenience and prejudice to the plaintiff more than the defendants.

The judge stated in his ruling that the members of the ITFS, which comprised of experts within various government agencies had charged and prosecuted many high profile cases, some of which have resulted in conviction and offenders jailed, while other cases were still pending.

"Many have been charged with stealing millions of kina. Paul Paraka alone has been charged with stealing K71 million from the State.

"This and other cases for Paul Paraka’s accomplices are still pending prosecution," Justice Gavara-Nanu said in his ruling.

He also found that the decision to abolish ITFS would have adverse effect on the hard work and resource ITFS had put in to investigate and prosecuted corruption cases. "It is clear that the State will be the one to suffer irreparable damage if ITFS files are lost, damaged or tampered with," the judge said.

"All the hard work that ITFS has put into those cases and time and money spent to do such work will be a total waste and the people accused of committing serious crimes will not be brought to justice. No amount of damage would be sufficient remedy."

The judge ruled that the NEC decisions numbered 191 and 196 of 2014, which were made on June 18 and 24, in which NEC decided to abolish ITFS and for ITFS to transfer all its working files to the IOAC to be headed by former Judge, Graham Ellis be permanently stayed until the said decisions are heard and fully determined by the court.