Sir Buri Kidu, KBE (8 August 1945 – 30 January 1994) was the first national Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea.
[5] Indeed, during Sir Buri’s ten-year (plus three years) term of office as Chief Justice the superior courts of Papua New Guinea rigorously maintained an independent role for the courts vis-à-vis the executive and the legislature — a position which Lady Kidu (now Dame Carol Kidu) feels was vital in the decision of the Wingti Government to oust him as Chief Justice in 1993 when his statutory ten-year term had elapsed.
[1] In August 1993 Sir Buri's second term in office expired, and he was not reappointed by the Wingti Government (when he was two years short of the age qualification to receive a pension, leaving him without an income).
Sir Buri quickly established that the mandate of the Constitution would stand and that even when its provisions as to the pre-1975 decisions of English courts might be out of keeping with arguably more sensible jurisprudence of jurisdictions of persuasive authority, such decisions must stand because that was what the Constitution mandated (see Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea).
[5] Sir Buri died of a massive heart attack on 30 January 1994,[6] at the age of 48, five months after the elapse of his term of office as Chief Justice.