Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea

In the latter case the Court is, strictly speaking, not exercising a judicial function but rather, pursuant to the ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Attorney-General of Ontario v Attorney-General of Canada (Reference Appeal) [1912] AC 571, one of advising the executive branch of government, a jurisdiction expressly conferred on the Supreme Court by Papua New Guinea's Constitution.

In practice the courts have found great difficulty in applying the vastly differing custom of the many traditional societies of the country in a modern legal system and the development of the customary law according to indigenous Melanesian conceptions of justice and equity has been less thorough than may have been anticipated in 1975; the Underlying Law Act does not yet appear to have had significant effect.

The principle of the mere persuasiveness of overseas (and pre-Independence Papua New Guinea) authority vis-à-vis the binding authority of pre-1975 English authority has been applied many times in, for example, Toglai Apa and Bomai Siune v The State [1995] PNGLR 43 that it is bound to follow the English House of Lords case of Rookes v Barnard [1964] AC 1129[4] on the ineligibility of plaintiffs to an award of exemplary damages against ministers of the state or public servants other than in strictly limited circumstances, notwithstanding its having been decisively overruled by both the High Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Canadian appeals to the Privy Council were often heard by an Australian judge and vice versa; admirable cases decided in the other country are occasionally followed as are parliamentary statutes adopted even yet though seldom expressly acknowledged.

Amet was succeeded by Sir Mari Kapi, who served as Chief Justice from August 16, 2003 until his resignation in 2008 for health reasons.

[10] In 2018, Sir Gibbs Salika[11][circular reference] succeeded Injia in becoming the fifth national Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea.