PNG Electoral Commissioner Sinai Calls for Legal Bills to be standardised
Papua New Guinea Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai said the Commission will consult with relevant authorities including the Department of Justice and Attorney General to review the cost of legal fees that are charged by private firms on elections petitions and other matters.
He said the State remains the single biggest clients to most of the law firms that are operating in the country, where all government departments and State agencies continue to hire their services.
Mr Sinai said the government has been paying huge sums of money to private law firms without using an approved legal fee structure.
“It is unfortunate that we don’t have a standardized or a prescribed legal fee structure that can be used as a guide to pay appropriate levels of fees to private lawyers. Currently the Commission is paying fees based on different categories of tasks that are undertaken, especially with election petitions. And that’s how we have been operating since the engagement of private lawyers in 2002 and onwards,” he said.
Mr Sinai said the legal bills are itemized and costs are spread over different activities such as;
• Status conference, where all parties in an EP matter are involved,
• Direction hearing
• Competency
• Trial
• Decision
• Appeal
• Slip rule, and so forth
“To be fair on parties, we need to have an approved fee structure to engage private legal practitioners on urgent matters. Right now we are operating in a vacuum and there’s a need to consult relevant authorities to review the legal fee issue and put in place a measure to standardize the levels of fees the State pays to private law firms,” he said.
Mr Sinai said the engagement of private lawyers has been expensive but due to the increasing number of election petition cases, it has become necessary to engage the services of private lawyers to avoid by elections.
The Commissioner hinted that the Commission will pull out of all election petition cases in the future as a party and allow the member and the petitioner to fight it out in court.
“We will only appear in Court as witness and give evidence where necessary,” he said.
Mr Sinai further warned that petitioners who have lost their cases will be made to pay the awarded costs.
“We will seek the assistance of the court and obtain all the orders and costs awarded in 2012, 2017 and 2022 election petitions and work with Department of Justice and Attorney General and police to execute those orders and recoup costs to the State.”
Mr Sinai said the State has spent millions of kina defending those cases and the court orders will be enforced, even to repossessing and selling properties and possessions to recover costs.
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