A significant agreement between Australia and select Pacific nations has been described as a crucial “doorway” that will strengthen judicial systems internationally.
Signed yesterday, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) marks a pivotal step forward in supporting the relationship between Australia, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.
The agreement will see the Pacific nation judges have access to crucial support and resources, aimed at improving the quality, efficiency, and fairness of their judicial systems.
Federal Court Chief Justice Debra Mortimer, Papua New Guinea Supreme and National Courts Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, and Solomon Islands High Court Chief Justice Sir Albert Palmer gathered in Melbourne yesterday to sign the MOU.
Chief Justice Mortimer described the agreement as part of Australia’s commitment to offering additional cooperation and support.
“These agreements are between one court and another court about how we will cooperate to support the work that our judges are doing,” Chief Justice Mortimer told 9news.com.au.
“It’s also to support the work that’s necessary to make a court run like registry services, IT and mediations.
“These (agreements) are about cooperating with our partners in the region, to see what assistance we can provide because relatively speaking, Australian courts are much more well-resourced than many of our partner courts.”
This isn’t the first MOU signed with the Solomon Islands, with the first occurring in 2018.
However, the new agreement will focus on building judicial capacity; e-filing and digitisation; mediation and case management.
Justice Palmer described the partnership as a “doorway” in terms of allowing assistance to the judicial system.
“It’s an enabler as well, (helping) develop materials, training, mentoring, it opens that avenue for us as a young developing jurisdiction,” he said.
“It’s growing, consolidating and strengthening the work of the judiciary in my country, but also it enables us to be able to move on and develop our own jurisprudence as well.
“It opens opportunities for us to access, it’s quite significant.”
Papua New Guinea has maintained a strong relationship with the Australian Federal Court since a MOU was first signed in 2009.
The Pacific nation has remained close judicial partners ever since, and the most recent signing will see collaboration on issues including building judicial capacity; case management; and promoting gender equity among judges.
“Since we’ve had this relationship through the MOU, we’ve had technical assistance together with the personnel from the Federal Court of Australia,” Justice Salika said.
“We have had two judges come on a monthly basis to Papua New Guinea, their experiences have been shared by all of us and that has assisted a lot of us in how business is done, how judges were written quickly and efficiently without having to wait for a long time.
“It should be structured, their engagement has been of great assistance.”
The program was funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
