THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA IS GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTANT AND DISCONTINUOUS FROM THE PACIFIC but the situation of some African economies and their dynamics of development have often inspired comparisons with Pacific Island countries irrespective of the elegance and relevance of those comparative projects. The countries of the two regions share a Western history of having been subjects of Euoprean colonialism, decolonisation and subsequent political independence (except for New Caledonia and West Papua). Comparisons have been drawn between the two regions from a host of variables ranging from disciplines such as archaeology (the theory of African origins); anthropology (such as the African models in New Guinea Highlands); epidemiology (where striking statistical similarities are detected in patterns of HIV and AIDS infection); and politics (endemic corruption, criminalisation of the State and the ubiquitous notion of failed states etc).
Often the comparisons are made for the purposes of exogenous analyses and interests. However, recently a curious point of comparison was drawn within Papua New Guinea from the field of national politics where the focus is on the question of dictatorship. It is unclear whether the comparison is motivated by a desire to inspire innovation in matters of legal interpretation, or a critical comment intended to shape and direct policy development, or merely a swipe of rhetorical smartness that characterises the speeches of most politicians. The observation came from Sir Julius Chan, who is presently the Governor of the New Ireland Province, and who has served on two other occasions as the Prime Minister of PNG. Sir Julius was speaking at the recently revived Waigani Seminar hosted at the University of PNG. The seminar gave Sir Julius an auspicious occasion to take a swipe at the leadership of Sir Michael Somare, the current prime minister who was likened as a dictator comparable to the notoriously famous Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.
Sir Julius was speaking against some aspects of the current Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates which was intended to regulate the behaviour of politicians and the political parties with which they are associated. This law was engineered and came into force when Sir Mekere Morauta was at the helm as the Prime Minister of PNG. The need for the enactment and enforcement of this law stem evidently from the weak and fragmented political party system and the ’loose-canon syndrome’ of self-seeking politicians that contribute to the creation of a constant, fluid and unstable political climate that has subjected the management and governance of the country to persistent uncertainty and instability. Apart from seeking to cultivate a legal integrity of political parties and their candidates, the law was intended to institutionalise a solid and stable development of party politics. The fluid composition of parties and the constant realignment of politicians mean that stability was often compromised and, if it as desirable as a political value, it has to be purchased at the price of some philosophical cost.
One of the philosophical candidates that this law has had to compromise and suppress in its quest for a stable political climate is the freedom of conscience of individual party members. Freedom of conscience refers basically to the ability of individual citizens to make free and informed decisions. It is synonymous with freedom of thought which is an indispensable condition that underlies every other kinds of freedom guarnteed under the Constitution. When the concept becomes applicable to parliamentarians, it refers to the absolute prerequisite for legitimacy, acceptability and efficacy of decision making that should ideally be free from any form coercion or constaint, bias or external imposition.
Conscience gives discretion to individual members of parliament to vote on issues on their own accord and integrity. By extension, conscience also gives them the freedom to move from one political party to another when it suits them. In this regard it seems as though conscience is accused of equiping and motivating individual leaders to seek out alternative pathways and connections as and when they find it necessary or expedient. Thus freedom of conscience, or the lack of it, appears to be a philosophical ghost that animates and lubricates the mechanics of PNGs political instability. And so it follows that if this philosophical ghost continues to reign freely, chaos and instability will continue to plauge and render PNGs politics vulnerable to perpetual fragmentation and fluidity.
Like putting ice and freezing a fluid reality, what the Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates has done is to halt and prevent the flow of members jumping out of parties and realigning them elsewhere in the pursuit of greener pastures. By keeping them intact, they could behave as if they were one single individual thinking and acting with the conscience of the party itself. When a party undertakes a resolution, the party’s decision becomes the choice of their individual members….thus individual freedom of conscience has become suspended or even erased. But if conscience has become an unexamined casualty of its own undoing, it is because the interest of political stability was considered paramount and supercedes the freedom of conscience and political association of candidates once they are elected into parliament.
The papers (The National and the Post Courier) which carry the story from the Waigani Seminar did not clarify if there were wider moral and constitutional implications spelt out in Sir Julius’s criticism. The issues that were highligted concern the freedom of conscience and the extension of the grace period in which a duly elected government could enjoy its powers of decision making before it succumbs to the possibility of an alternative government orchestrated through the force of a vote of no-confidence executed in parliament. Because it was the party’s resolution, individual members of parliament, who belong to the ruling party and their coalition partners, voted in favour of the desire to extend the grace period. Below is the brunt of Sir Julius’s observations:
“My view of the grace period, whether it is six or 18 months, is that any mandatory powers bestowed unchecked are extremely dangerous and overpowering the Prime Minister with unlimited authority to command at will…Our Constitution unintentionally provides protection for a specified period even for a dictator, terrorist or even a stupid insane person in office for such a period of time….[The situation with the current government is] typical of an almost untouchable Prime Minister…The difference between Robert Mugabe( President of Zimbabwe) and Papua New Guinea is that Mugabe assumed dictatorship powers wheres in PNG, they are legalised throughout the grace period”.
Sir Julius opines that his political opponent Sir Michael, has hijacked the provisions of the Organic Law and the Constitution to install himself unwittingly as a dictator hiding inside the cloak of democracy. It seems obvious Sir Julius and his team of politicians have been looking for an opportunity to topple and offer an alternative government to that of Sir Michael’s. However, Sir Michael has outwitted his opponents by welding an extension to the period where an elected government is exempted from political threats coming from within the parliament. Because Sir Julius is talking only about the freedom of conscience in relation to the extension of the grace period, his criticism is somewhat limited and might therefore be seen as self-seeking. That is, how could his criticism be taken further beyond the domain of politics and into the realm of ideology? Furthermore, it is plainly untenable to paint a broad comparison between Mugabe and Somare and likened them as distant partners in the crime of dictatorship because the effects of Somare’s constitutional dictatorship is implicit, less painful and less chaotic as the situation we find in Zimbabwe.
It is also fair to note that Sir Julius and his band of compatriots are not as oppressed as Robert Mugabe’s opponents can be. Rather people like Sir Julius, and those individuals or institutions that have the standing before Court, or locus standi, can raise this matter in Court and test out the constitutional validity of laws such as the Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates. The Governor of Morobe Province, Luther Wenge, has been very exemplary in this regard. Instead of steaming out in a furty, why not institute a Court reference on this matter?
In the interim, there are some important and interesting questions that the criticism from Sir Julius Chan has brought to light. If the conscience of the individual parliamentarian has been transferred to the choice and decision of the political party, what kind of conscience can we expect a party to possess? If an individual is the locus of conscience, what kind of an individual is party? If this particular law has made political parties into an institutional thief that is searing the conscience of individual parliamentarians, what kind of democracy are we heading into when there is no conscience but the party and what kind of government had we when conscience was considered a constitutional freedom? If we are to resuscitate and restore the freedom of conscience as the property of a free and rational individual, how could we allow the same to offer us some guarantee for a stable political climate for purposes of governance?
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