Refugees seeking resettlement and compensation

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The lawyer representing refugees detained on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island says he’s re-filed a new Supreme Court application for their resettlement and compensation.

The court ruled in April that the detention of refugees is illegal, but it dismissed a similar application last month on a bureaucratic technicality as the refugees’ lawyer, Ben Lomai, had signed application papers on behalf of his clients.

Lomai said he was unable to obtain the signatures in the first instance as his clients were held in detention but 731 refugees out of about 900 marooned on Manus Island have since signed the new application.

“We name Behrouz Boochani as the principle applicant in that matter and 730 others. We were able to secure 731 signatures,” he said.

“A few other guys will come in as and when they submit their forms in and that includes those living oversees.”

Lomai said the PNG government has indicated it will settle his clients’ claims for compensation and some refugees could be awarded about US$90 for each day of their detention but he will ask the court to increase that amount.

He said the PNG government will be expecting Australia to finance the compensation.

“That will be a matter for the Australian government and Papua New Guinea government to talk about those issues under the terms of the 2013memorandum of understanding because as agreed between these two governments that Australian government should be responsible for all cost associated with offshore processing.”

Talk of compensation suggests a third country has been found in which to resettle the refugees he said.

“We have already been advised that the state has offered to settle compensation, probably in lieu of the fact that they have now some arrangement in place for a resettlement into a third country.”

Some of the refugees have been detained on Manus Island for three years, and Lomai said their compensation would be decided on a case by case basis.

He is trying to request a hearing for his application in December.

Meanwhile, Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister has appealed to the international community for help in resettling Australia’s refugees held on Manus Island.

PNG’s government said the Manus Refugee Processing Centre is undergoing final phases of shutting down according to Supreme Court orders.

The Court ruled in April that holding people against their will on Manus is illegal.

However despite having sent the roughly 900 men to Manus since 2013, Australia has ruled out ever resettling them.

The minister Rimbink Pato said that so far 583 asylum seekers have been determined to be refugees but the vast majority of them don’t want to resettle in PNG. Pato said that PNG has asked for international help in resettling the men but no help has been forthcoming.

“We’re faced with a stalemate, and therefore we’re asking the international community, of course we’re asking Australia as well, because it’s really Australia’s problem that we have shared under the arrangement with the Commonwealth to assist a friend in need.”

Twenty-four of the refugees have reportedly sought resettlement in PNG and are currently living in Lae, Rabaul and Port Moresby. - RNZIWar college move questioned

FIJI – The opposition in Fiji has questioned why the country’s police commissioner is going away to study at a war college for a year.

The opposition leader Ro Teimumu Kepa says the proper procedure for a constitutionally appointed officer of state has not been followed.

Last week, Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho the Fiji Sun he would move to Malaysia for a year next month to attend the Malaysian War College.

His deputy Isikei Ligairi would act as Police Commissioner in the interim, it was reported.

Ro Teimumu said as a member of the Constitutional Offices Commission she should have been notified of the move and she said no meeting had been called to appoint an acting commissioner.

She questioned how the study would improve the police chief’s policing skills.

“Are the public to assume that his career as our police commissioner has been cut short?” she asked.

“This entire episode, highlights yet again, government’s unscrupulous attitude to transparency and accountability and proper procedures.”

The former senior military officer was confirmed as police chief in March following the resignation of the former commissioner Ben Groenewald a year ago. Free food on election day banned

AMERICAN SAMOA – American Samoans have been reminded that the giving out of free food on election day is prohibited under territorial election law.

The 2016 general election is underway today.

The reminder from election officials comes amid new concerns that people are still not aware that the law banning the giving of free food went into effect during the 2014 general election.

Giving out free lunch plates had been the normal practice during elections over the past three decades but in 2013, the governor Lolo Matalasi Moliga proposed legislation to ban the practice which was quickly approved. The change occurred following complaints that votes had been bought with free food on election day.

The territory’s chief election officer, Uiagalelei Dr Lealofi Uiagalelei, issued a reminder that there is “absolutely no free food distribution”, beginning after midnight on polling day until the closing of polls at 6pm.

Campaigning or loud music near polling stations on election day is also banned.

- RNZI