The long hard task of fixing Papua New Guinea's broken cycle of justice

In 2022, Papua New Guinea's Parliament unanimously voted to change the country's gun laws making it possible for the courts to impose life sentences on people found to be in possession of illegal firearms.

The amendments to the Firearms Act were tabled by Prime Minister James Marape and it came just three years after a previous set of changes.

Parliament's decision reflected widespread public sentiments after the brutal mass murder of 16 women and children in James Marape's Hela Province and in the Pogera District of the Enga Province in 2019.

Since then, Papua New Guinea, has joined the club of countries with the toughest gun laws.

But nobody has yet been convicted under the new laws.

Harsher laws, no arrests

It is a frustrating reality for the Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso, who has repeatedly reminded critics that while the law makers have done their jobs, the law enforcers haven't done theirs.

"Our security forces need to start arresting people and enforce the law," Rosso said. "Too often you see "warlords" walking in front of soldiers and policemen with weapons in plain view. No one gets arrested.

"The rule of law needs to be enforced. Parliament has changed the laws. Anyone found with an illegal weapon is supposed to have a maximum penalty of life behind bars."

Wabag MP Dr Lino Tom, who resigned from his job as Health Minister before the vote of no confidence in September, said his primary reason for him moving to the opposition was because the government wasn't addressing the deteriorating law and order situation in his home province of Enga.

"Like all other traditional societies throughout the country, have had social structures that were respected. Now with the advent of guns and weapons, people who can handle weapons are in power now, so to speak.

"Now, the problem with the government is that there seems to be a total breakdown in our institutions of state. Police are no longer doing their work. They've basically become mediation officers."

Police ill-equipped

Within police ranks, there is a general reluctance to arrest or disarm fighters in tribal conflict situations.

There are several practical factors that influence their decisions.

Enga's recently appointed Provincial Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Fred Yakasa, explained that security forces usually opt to negotiate ceasefires to avoid situations where clashes happen between armed clans and police.

"From a ground commander's perspective, a confrontational approach to disarming people in a tribal conflict situation is dangerous. People within the conflict can turn on security forces and we can have a turnaround in the engagement.

There are other layers of problems that ground commanders are faced with but don't talk about openly.

Police and military personnel deployed to tribal fighting zones are always outnumbered, poorly equipped and in some cases, outgunned.

"If you want to ask me as to what we can do to have them arrested and to stop tribal conflicts, we need superior firepower," Fred Yakasa said.

"We need more manpower. In any tribal conflict where there are modern weapons engaged, we need adequate resources...Something that can supersede what they have. That is what we don't have."

Public distrust

In many instances, security personnel choose to contain the fighting away from populated areas whilst negotiating peace.

Limited troop numbers and the lack of arrests in trouble spots around the country has created an environment of public distrust towards law enforcement arms of government. People generally feel that they won't be protected against retaliations if they report crimes or if arrests are made and criminals with guns continue to act with impunity.

"Law and order, protection of lives and properties...gives a government its legitimacy," Dr Lino Tom said. "Now, what's the purpose of a government?

"What you see around the country is people taking up their sovereign rights again. They just realize that they don't have any trust. They don't see the government capable of delivering justice. So basically, the people have taken up justice. They're taking law into their own hands."

In the last 20 years, there has been very little investment into the law and justice sector and many of the problems associated with this lack of investment have worsened.

Police continue to go into trouble spots with limited resources. Police recruitments have been non-existent until much recently.

Investigation and prosecution capacities have been at their weakest in years and the courts have been overwhelmed with outstanding cases.

Overcrowded prisons are unable to adequately rehabilitate prisoners due to funding shortfalls.

Implementing solutions

Rosso said the PNG government is working to fix the broken justice system suffering from years of neglect.

"People don't realise that in the last 10 years that we haven't had a police recruitment. And the police recruitment for any country is essential.

"Our police recruitment started last year when we got into government. We made it a focus that I personally made a focus on law and order.

"So, we concentrated on making certain that we have an adequate police recruitment, but we were constrained by the numbers we could put through our police college. Our police college has a capacity of about 300 personnel every year."

Bilateral arrangements with Australia have allowed for the Bomana police college to be rehabilitated with funding of more than A$50 million. This now allows the college to increase current recruitment from 300 to 1000 personnel.

Read more:

• 'No one gets arrested': Impunity emboldening warlords in Papua New Guinea
• From bows and arrows to assault rifles: How the rules of tribal wars have changed
• Pope's message to end tribal violence
• PNG govt told to protect people after 'barbaric killings'
• Enga leader says PNG 'politicians, pastors' supplying weapons to fuel tribal violence
• Warring tribes in Papua New Guinea agree to 'completely end killings'
• 'Chopped him with a bush knife': A PNG massacre killer says 'revenge' is the only way

Broken 'cycle of justice'

The college will also assist in training officers from other Pacific Island countries.

"After 10 years of not seeing any recruitment, our police college graduated the first 300 policemen and women this year. We need to increase the capacity of our police from a strength of about 5000 now to about 10,000 by the year 2027 and up to United Nations ratio per population up to about 26,000."

The multi-faceted approach to fixing the law and justice sector doesn't stop at recruitment.

New police housing are being built.

There has been funding increases to the magisterial services and foreign officers from Commonwealth countries will be brought in to mentor and build capacity.