CLA News / CLA President to visit Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
The Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) Council Member for PNG, David Denniston, welcomes the President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, Peter D Maynard KC, to Port Moresby from 3 to 9 February 2024. This is a historic first for PNG.
The Honourable Chief Justice of PNG, Sir Gibuma Gibbs Salika, GCL KBE CSM OBE has invited Mr Maynard to attend and speak at the 2024 legal year opening ceremony on Monday 5 February. Mr Maynard is also planned to meet with the Honourable Deputy Chief Justice, Ambeng Kandakasi CBE, the President of the PNG Law Society, Hubert Namani, the Attorney General, the Honourable Pila Kole Niningi, MP and the Secretary for the Department of Justice & Attorney General, Dr. Kwa.
The CLA promotes the rule of law and legal education throughout the Commonwealth including helping to hold members accountable to the Latimer House Principles on the independence of the three branches of government and to promote our common values. These are causes Mr Maynard has been involved with his whole career, including, serving as a High Court Justice, a Deputy Chair of the Regional Judicial and Legal Service Commission of the Caribbean Court of Justice, a newspaper columnist, an economist, a Diplomat at the United Nations, a Legal Adviser of the Bahamas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution and authoring the book “Poverty, Justice and the Rule of Law” for the IBA. He has also held leadership positions in several lawyers’ organisations, such as the International Bar Association (IBA), the World Jurist Association, and the Inter-American Bar Association.
Mr Maynard is also a senior partner of Peter D. Maynard Counsel and Attorneys in the Bahamas where he has vast experience in complex civil litigation, asset tracing and recovery, arbitration and mediation. He is also the former Head of the Law Department of the University of The Bahamas, the founder and chair of the annual ADR and Investment Summit and the International and Western Hemisphere, Arbitration, Adjudication and Mediation Centre.
In PNG and the South Pacific the CLA holds many legal education events. In 2024 it welcomes Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the Pitcairn Islands as institutional members for the first time, it has worked with regional law societies to find an interim solution to save PacLII and initiated the collaboration with the World Justice Project which includes bringing its rule of law index and measures to the region in the future.
The CLA holds biennial Commonwealth Law Conferences which are supported by PNG lawyers and the judiciary. The next one will be in Malta from 6-10 April 2025. In the interim, in conjunction with the Sabah Law Society, the CLA is hosting the Borneo Rainforest Law Conference in Sabah, Malayasia from 25-28 February 2024 and is delighted that the Honourable Deputy Chief Justice Ambeng Kandakasi, CBE will be a keynote speaker.
