Case of the six missing electorates

AT the last sitting before the National Parliament rose for the 2022 National General Elections, the Government pushed through the PNG Boundaries Commission Report.
By the mere act of approving the report, Parliament also made the recommendations of the report for the creation, amalgamation or extinguishment of any boundaries in the country to take legal effect.
It became law.
In the process, 13 new Open electorates were created in Papua New Guinea.
The creation of the Hela and Jiwaka provinces in 2012 had added two regional electorates but had left the district boundaries unchanged at 89 Open electorates.
The total number of regional electorates (provincial seats) rose to 22 from 20 and that also increased the total number of seats in Parliament from 109 to 111.
The latest changes increased the total number of Open electorates to 102 and the total seats in Parliament to 124 seats.
The number of open electorates and of provincial electorates and their boundaries are supposed to be determined by Parliament in accordance with recommendations from a Boundaries Commission at 10-year intervals.
In making the determinations, the Boundaries Commission shall ensure all Open electorates contain about the same population.
Parliament may accept or reject, but may not amend, any recommendation of the Boundaries Commission.
Having passed the Boundaries Commission report, Parliament then reneged on its own decision at the suggestion of the Executive Government to allow only seven of the electorates to elect members in the 2022 National General Elections.
This was mischievous law-making and plainly wrong, because Parliament agreed to 13 new seats, not seven.
In making this highly-discriminatory selection of seven new electorates going into the elections and leaving six off to a future date, Parliament breached the Constitution.
It deprived persons in those six new precluded electorates their constitutional rights to be represented in Parliament.
It also denied the rights of individuals in those electorates who wanted to stand for a parliamentary seat.
No Parliament should make defective legislation or worse, make one which clearly breaches another in operation and having done so, to willfully camouflage it by executive decree for correction at a future date.
This adds premeditation and deceit to the offence.
The National Court, to which this matter was brought for adjudication, must have seen the offence immediately, but then steered itself clear of the controversy this was certain to draw as the National General Elections were just happening, so it dismissed the case with the curious comment that the matter would create disruption to the elections.
The presiding judge did make the pointed remark that there were serious constitutional issues in the matter which warranted attention, presumably at some future date.
The matter has not been brought back to the courts, so it remains undetermined.
With respect the court was deciding on a question that was not before it – the matter of the case disturbing the elections. The judge might have been at liberty to make the call within his discretionary powers, but a future decision on the case, had it been brought up, might have looked into those serious constitutional Issues spoken off, and might have triggered a far greater disruption by failing the national elections in their entirety or by declaring the elections in all the new electorates as flawed on the basis that six electorates were not represented in the National General Elections.
What of the constitutional right of the persons in the six new electorates which were created but refused the chance to go to elections in 2022? Their rights to stand for public office, for representation in the National Parliament and to equal treatment before the law were deliberately thwarted by executive edict in direct contravention of the law (creation of new electorates) just passed and the Constitution.
These are serious issues that warrant looking at and a good judge or lawyer or anybody else with the standing (before the law) ought to refer it to the Supreme Court for interpretation.