Maintaining the Liberal Character of the Judiciary: Challenges and Impetuses

The judiciary not only faces potential tensions with an unyielding executive and legislative arms of government in the implementation of its liberal powers but it also faces other challenges, both internal and external, that threatens to undermine its role. Internal challenges include judicial appointments and tenure, judicial philosophy of foreign judges, and the practice of singular judgements, which are susceptible to overbearing legalistic approaches. External challenges encompass inefficiencies in police investigations, incompetent and unethical lawyering, and deficiencies in the country’s lone law school, which fails to foster research that supports judges and instills in law students a deeper appreciation of the liberal character of the Papua New Guinea judiciary. This chapter analyses these challenges against three core imperatives for maintaining the judiciary’s liberal character: the serious decline and paralysis of deliberative and accountability institutions, the lack of a constitutional culture, and the legitimate expectation of the people for the judiciary to respond to these conditions. It argues that these imperatives outweigh the challenges and underscore the urgent need for the judiciary to maintain its liberal and interventionist role.