Supreme Court of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea

Established by the Papua and New Guinea Act 1949, whose provisions for the administrative union of Papua and the trust territory of New Guinea came into operation on 1 July 1949; its jurisdiction and procedure were set out in the territory's Supreme Court Ordinance 1949, which took effect the same day. It took over the superior jurisdiction of the courts that had served the two territories under the provisional administration of 1945 to 1949 and, before the war, the separate courts of Papua and New Guinea; those courts are not separately recorded here.

Legislation: Papua and New Guinea Act 1949

1. 11 May 1951Responsibility for the territory passed to the new Department of Territories.
2. 28 February 1968Responsibility for the territory passed to the new Department of External Territories.
3. 1 July 1971The territory was renamed Papua New Guinea; whether the court's own name was formally changed is not confirmed.
4. 30 November 1973Australian responsibility for Papua New Guinea passed to the Department of Foreign Affairs when the Department of External Territories was abolished, the day before self-government.
5. January 1975Australia handed over control of the courts and the judges to the Papua New Guinea Government, according to a 1976 Melanesian Law Journal account.

Replaced at independence on 16 September 1975, when the Constitution of Papua New Guinea established the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea and the National Court of Justice; the judges of the pre-independence Supreme Court became the first judges of the National Court, and the National Court Act 1975 continued the practice and procedure of the pre-independence court. Appeals to the High Court of Australia ended.

• Superior civil and criminal jurisdiction in Papua and New Guinea
• Trial of serious criminal offences
• Appeals from lower courts of the territory

Last in the portfolio of Department of Foreign Affairs.

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Some dates or links for this organisation are not fully confirmed. Corrections are welcome.