Functions & Roles
The Office of the State Solicitor is established under the Attorney General's Act 2022 and is one of various constitutional and legal offices which provides varying legal services including advice and legal representations for various clients in particular the State. The Branch is required under various Acts of Parliament including the Public Finances (Management) Act, 1995, Public Services (Management) Act, 1995 and the National Executive Council’s Handbook on Submissions, to provide legal opinion and it issues letters of legal clearance before the State makes commitment in the conduct of State business.
The branch is basically the State’s Legal Office, which assists the State to implement NEC decisions regarding any resource projects, infrastructure projects, matters of commercial undertaking or other legal advice on constitutional and legal implications on administrative and executive actions of the State.
The office prepares and provides comments on Draft Contracts and other legal instruments submitted by client Departments and agencies of the State. Similarly it issues letters of legal clearance and Certificate of Necessity on draft proposed legislations for NEC’s consideration. The office is represented on various inter and intra departmental committees as well.
Staff on Strength
There are 5 sections in the Office, each of which is headed by a Deputy State Solicitor. They are the Common Law/General Advising, Commercial Law, International Law, Procurement Law, Mining & Petroleum. The total staff strength under the current establishment register is 46 which comprises 36 legal officer positions including the State Solicitor and the three (3) deputies. There are 10 non-legal officer positions which include seven (7) legal secretaries, one (1) administrative officer and two (2) driver positions. Late last year a decision was made to have nine (9) legal officer positions that were previously unfunded, to have funding this year. Whether this has occurred will need to be confirmed by the Human Resources Branch of the Department of Justice & Attorney General.
The current total staff strength is 24 of which 19 are legal officers including the State Solicitor. It is hoped that the full complement of the 36 legal officer positions (hopefully with funding being made available for the previously unfunded positions) will be achieved later this year with further recruitment being planned to commence soon.
Common Law
This Section is one of the five (5) sections in the Office. It is tasked with providing advice and opinions and legal clearances primarily on matters that are not dealt with by the Commercial and International Law sections. These are matters in the Constitutional and Administrative Law field as well as Property Law and even in contract law as well as tort, and employment law. The Deputy State Solicitor (Common Law) has two (2) principal legal officers (General Advising and Property Advising) and seven (7) other legal officer positions in this section, under the current establishment register. Of these three (3) positions are unfunded currently but are expected to have funding soon to enable further recruitment later in the year. One of the four (4) remaining legal officers has moved to the International Law section. The current staff strength is seven (7) which includes the legal secretary for the section. The PLO (Property advising) position will shortly become vacant following the recent appointment of the current holder as Chief Commissioner of the National Lands Commission. This of course means that the section will be further reduced to five (5) lawyers and one (1) legal secretary.
Commercial Law
The Commercial Section of the State Solicitor’s Office provides legal assistance in relation to all legal issues arising from all Government Commercial transactions. Such assistance ranges from providing general legal advice on specific legal issues put to the office by our client departments and State agencies participating in Project and Loan Negotiations, and at times the Section assists in the Alternative Dispute Resolutions (ADR) arising from interpretation and construction of the Agreements.
The primary functions of the section can be categorized into five different areas, Infrastructure Projects, Non Mining, Investment projects, Loans Grant Aid/Finance Assistance, and General Commercial advice.
International Law
The main function of this section is to ensure that the international obligations of the State are complied with. In this regard, the division is responsible for all international law matters including those involving law of the sea, maritime and fisheries, diplomatic and consular matters, trade related issues both bilaterally and multilaterally, constitutional procedures as regards treaty making, civil aviation as regards air services agreements, intellectual property rights, environmental, security including counter-terrorism and transnational organized crime and human rights matters.
The division has a close working relationship with other Departments and Agencies to, amongst others, ensure that:
- The States’ international obligations are implemented domestically and;
- On an international level, the interests of the State are taken into consideration.
In this regard the officers of the division work with other departments to coordinate implementation of international obligations through domestic legislation.
In addition to this, and as part of the nature of their job, officers also do quite a fair bit of traveling to represent the State, as legal advisors, at international meetings, negotiations (both bilateral and multilateral) and other international activities such as in the drafting of bilateral and multilateral agreements that the State enters into with other countries.
Mining & Petroleum
The Mining and Petroleum Section has been one of the most important and technical of the Branches with the Commercial section. This is attributed to importance of the Mining and Petroleum Industry in the country. These industries have been contributing substantially to the national budget each year since the BCL days
More over this is due primarily to the highly technical nature of the development of such project and the massive social and environmental impact it can have on the project area. The Office works very closely with the Departments of Mineral Policy and Geo Hazards and Petroleum & Energy and has maintained a very close professional relationship with these Departments who are the principal clients in that regard. The office has been involved in all the Mining projects starting from the Bougainville Copper Mine to the yet to be developed Nautilus Minerals Solwara project in the Bismark sea.
The office was also heavily involved in the negotiations and drafting of various agreements relating to the Exxon led PNG LNG project and the preparation of documents for the exit of BHP Billiton from the Ok Tedi Mining Project.
The office is current involved in the negotiations and drafting of the documents to allow the extension of the Ok Tedi mining project. The State through NEC has decided to extend the mind life beyond 2013 which is the official date for mine closure because of budget implications.
In order to implement the NEC Decision, the Inmet Corporation of Canada which has a shareholding of 18% in the Ok Tedi mining project exit the project because if it continues to be the shareholder, it will continue to veto the mine life extension. Inmet exit is being negotiated with the final outcome soon.
The state solicitor is also a member of the three person Petromin Trust the other two being the president of the PNG Law Society or his nominee and the president of the Institute of Accountants
Procurement Law
The section is required to take care and carriage of at least 300 files in the Conveyancing area. These 300 files relate to the purchase of homes by public servants under various Home Ownership Schemes. These are nationwide schemes, where files are created for purchasers when instructions are received from the National Housing Corporation (NHC).
The Section is also tasked with the responsibility of providing advices on the leases or sub-leases of Office accommodation for all national departments and other government agencies where offices are rented from the private sector. There are about fifty (50) files on such leases. It also assists in provision of legal services to the State where PNG missions overseas are required to enter into lease agreements. Currently we have four (4) files for leases of Office or residential properties from our overseas missions, eg. Jakarta (Indonesia), Honiara (Solomon Islands), South Korea and Wellington (New Zealand). Payments for such overseas properties are made by the Department of Foreign Affairs whereas those within the country are paid for by Treasury Department. The budget for office accommodation alone in the country was about K99 million last year.
The property advising component of the Section also plays a major role in advising the Department of Lands on matters regarding land dealings throughout the country. Such advices relate to grants, issues arising from same, forfeitures actions, transactions, licenses and so forth. Apart from matters relating to dealings in land this section’s bulk of the work is made up of legal matters, other than commercial or international law matters.
Apart from the above the Section also assists the other two (2) sections of the Office of State Solicitor as and when required in their specific areas of Commercial as well as International Law.