General

This track is one of the four Common Law Division tracks among which all the general civil suits other then the special track cases are allocated. Apart from this track, there are   three others – civil court tracks 1, 3, and 4. Civil track 4 was started recently in 2013 due to the large volume of cases being registered and the other three tracks already having been allocated over 1000cases to manage, administer and for the courts to deal with their disposal.

Like other similar tracks, this track has its own various lists – the motion, directions and trial lists apart from summary determination lists as and when the track Judge requires us to prepare.

As of this year, the track Judge will be Honourable Justice Ambeng Kandakasi who is also the Judge responsible of all Court Annexed Mediation matters in the country.

The track is currently looked after by two officers, namely Mr. Mark Sel and Ms. Debra Oa is the track leader. This number is not adequate and we hope to get two more staff in the near future to enable us to satisfactorily provide service to our clients.

The Judge’s associate is Mr. Daniel Goma.

Motion Listings

Motion lists are created from fresh motions being filed by parties or from pending motions in a particular matter upon request of the party moving the motion to list them. It also includes those motion matters adjourned to a later date by the court.

Directions Lists

Principally, this list is developed as a result of lawyers or the parties writing to us to list their cases for direction hearing. Another process through which a matter gets onto the direction hearing list is when parties have filed Notice to Set Down for Trial. This notice signified that all pleadings are closed and it is time for the parties or their lawyers to seek from the court trial dates to have the proceedings trialled.

Trial Lists

These lists contain those matters   set for trial by the Court   during the court circuit period. We do not set any matter for trial from the registry.

Mention/Call Over List

It does not stop the Judge from calling or mentioning all the matters in the track or mention cases registered for a particular period of time like older cases still around to basically find out from parties or their lawyers of their willingness to prosecute the cases. When such a decision is made, we develop this type of list and get the cases before the court to mention them.

Summary Determination List

Under the rules of practice of the court, there a rule that if these are not activity on the case toward progressing the case for a lengthy period of time, then the National Court can deal with this type of case is a summary manner to dispose the case.   This disposal of cases is done through the registry developing a Summary Determination List and getting it before the court.

Service

We deal with allot of lawyers and parties to the proceedings. We would like lawyers or parties to assist us by indicating the court track of all their cases   on any correspondences they send to the registry once you know that your case is allocated to a particular track.

For instance, whether it is in civil court tracks, 1,2,3,4 Commercial, Human rights, Judicial Review/Appeals, Crimes etc.

This is very helpful to us because, the correspondences go straight to the track officers responsible. When that reference is missing, it takes a while for the correspondences to reach the right track.

While we try our best to attend to each external client to meet the demands and expectations, we admit we are not perfect and can cause under par services. Whilst this is not a excuse, we are always trying to meet the standard and demand and we cannot make everyone happy. We would also ask for your understanding, as we too have internal clients like the Judges and our superior to whom we provide our services while they demand for us to provide effective and efficient service to our external clients.

Supervising   Managers

We have Assistant Registrar is Waigani who oversee what we do. They also assist us. There are three Assistant Registrars who supervise the three main divisions, Common Law, Equity and Crimes.

• For the Common Law Division which includes this track, Mr. Baka Bina is the immediate supervisor. Correspondences can be sent to him where it warrants but otherwise we would appreciate if all correspondences regarding this track be sent attention of Mark Sel and or Debra Oa.
• For the Equity Division tracks like Judicial Review and Appeals, Commercial, Human Rights and Election Petition, the Supervising Assistant registrar is Mr. David Gonol.
• For Crimes, the supervising Assistant Registrar is Mr. Kwara Giriwa.

Suggestions

We would like to improve where we have failed or not met the expectations of our clients so we would like to hear from you of any suggestions to improve on. Please have suggestions, criticism etc sent to the Assistant Registrar or our senior managers, the Deputy Registrar or Registrar.

The track officers can be contacted directly on phone number – 3245 743