PNG and Vanuatu agree to share experiences in the space of public prosecution

Informal discussions over a cup of coffee have been spiced with a Memorandum of Understanding, bridging together the Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu Public Prosecutors' Offices.     

The Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] was signed between PNG Public Prosecutor Helen Roalakona and Vanuatu Public Prosecutor Simcha Boe on Tuesday in Vanuatu’s capital - Port Vila.

The first female public prosecutor of Papua New Guinea speaking to this newsroom in Port Vila gave an insight into the agreement, “MOU signed between the Office of Public Prosecutor of Vanuatu was about capacity building and professional exchange between both offices.

“The Public Prosecutor of Vanuatu approached me after a PILON [Pacific Islands Law Officers Network] meeting in October last year, asking if we could give support to his office to deal with matters which would require outside prosecution.

“What was a discussion over a cup of tea ended up with a memorandum of understanding where the focus is on capacity building, professional development, and exchange of ideas and skill sets.

“What it does now is enable our prosecutors from PNG to travel to Vanuatu and assist them with some of their cases, and also their lawyers and corporate service staff [will travel to PNG to] learn about how we run our operations,” PNG’s public prosecutor said.

All expenses of the trip from Port Moresby were paid by the Australian Government under its Law and Justice Sector Program.  

When the question was put to Ms Roalakona about the benefits of Office of PNG Public Prosecutor entering into such an agreement, she said, “for OPP PNG, it will expose our prosecutors to be able to prosecute in other jurisdictions, especially within the Pacific  and give them the opportunity to have horizontal relationships with our colleagues and counterparts in the other Pacific countries, especially within the Melanesian [Spearhead] Group.

"For the colleagues in Vanuatu is basically to help them with skills and capacity building in the area of complex cases because we have a variety of criminal offending that happens in Papua New Guinea, of which they don’t have this kind of scale in Vanuatu, but it gives them upskilling and confidence to prosecute highly complex cases when they are confronted with them.”

The MOU with Vanuatu is the second for Papua New Guinea inked similar with another Melanesian Country. The first was with Solomon Islands, signed in October last year in Port Moresby.