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July 16th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
Australian Federal Police officers deployed to Papua New Guinea could be vulnerable to prosecution in PNG’s courts.
Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced the plan to send fifty AFP officers to PNG by the end of the year to help tackle law and order problems.
A similar deployment was withdrawn by the Howard government in 2005 after a constitutional challenge against immunity from prosecution for the officers.
Former governor of Morobe Province on PNG’s northern coast, Luther Wenge, headed the Supreme Court challenge, which led to the withdrawal of more than 160 Australian Federal Police from the country.
Mr Wenge says at the time he didn’t believe the AFP should not be deployed in PNG, but making them immune to PNG law was unconstitutional.
“What I said simply was that [parts of] the agreement which was signed… by Papua New Guinea and Australia… did not comply with the Papua New Guinea constitution,” he said.
“That is, they were going to give them immunity from prosecution, and I said that was completely unconstitutional.”
Mr Wenge says any proposal for AFP officers to have immunity in the country remains unconstitutional.
The ex-governor has retired from politics but says he would support any moves to reinforce the Supreme Court order.
“I wouldn’t have the standing because the constitution gives certain institutions standing,” he said.
“But I would encourage the institutions with the standing to file reference in the Supreme Court again to get the Supreme Court to reinforce its order.”
The Australian Federal Police says an AFP scoping team will develop arrangements for the deployment of its officers in the coming weeks with the PNG Government and PNG’s Police Commissioner.
Topics:
law-crime-and-justice,
police,
foreign-affairs,
government-and-politics,
constitution,
papua-new-guinea,
australia,
pacific
First posted
Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/an-afp-could-be-vulnerable-to-prosecution-in-png/4824512
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