THE Papua New Guinea Fire Services (PNGFS) has successfully defended a claim before the courts launched by a group of aggrieved fire fighters.
The aggrieved fire fighters led by Andrew Talia commenced proceedings against the PNGFS and the State in 2015 in the National Court claiming entitlements for losses suffered and damages.
The aggrieved party had wanted the National Court to find PNGFS to be in breach of two memoranda agreements dated 1994 and 2005, thus denying them their entitlements.
But the case was thrown out in 2017 when the National Court found it having no cause of action and that the proceeding was an abuse to the court process.
Talia and his group however pressed on and appealed to the Supreme Court claiming the National Court had erred in its ruling.
However, the matter was finally put to rest when a three men bench made a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court recently to dismiss the appeal and ordered Talia and his men to pay the costs incurred by PNGFS whilst defending its interest in court.
The Supreme Court found that neither of the two memoranda agreements had not been registered under the Public Service Conciliation Authority Act as a determination and published in the National Gazette. It did not find any evidence that either of the memoranda of agreement were registered as required by law hence ruled the appeal unsuccessful and dismissed it forthwith.
Chief Fire Officer Bill Roo in welcoming the unanimous Supreme Court ruling on September 6th, 2021 thanked and commended his lawyers for successfully defending the Fire Services and the State.
Mr Roo also thanked the former deputy Prime Minister and Minster for Justice and Attorney General Davis Madava Steven for briefing out the case to Guardian Legal Services.
He was happy and relieved now that the matter has been put to rest and that he would focus on the important agendas of PNGFS.
“The final landmark case would have cost the State K100 million has finally come to an end after a long legal battle in which our own firefighters had taken the PNGFS and the State to both the National and Supreme Court spanning nearly more than twenty years,” Mr Roo said.
