Our Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Ronald Bei Talasasa is a highly respected and experienced lawyer.
He was elevated to this constitutional post after many years of service in the country’s judiciary.
In other words, he earned the position through hard work, dedication and commitment.
He has had an excellent command of the Office he held until this week when his commitment to his duties was put under the microscope.
That was after High Court judge Justice Stephen Pallaras told a gathering of lawyers in Honiara, Tuesday; Mr Talasasa’s regular overseas travels have had a serious negative impact on the court processes.
It is a known fact that Mr Talasasa travels regularly overseas.
On some occasions, he travelled to attend trainings, and conferences relating to his official duties.
On others, he was out there to attend sports gatherings and competitions.
Besides his job as the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Talasasa is a avid sports fanatic. He got himself involved in a lot of sporting activities.
He was a member of the Solomon Islands National Olympic Comittee.
There’s nothing wrong with his involvement in sports.
It was all good to see him supporting our local sporting groups and leading them to international competitions.
Except that may be, just maybe, Mr Talasasa got too involved that it started to affect his constitutional duties as the nation’s lead prosecutor.
That was the basis of Justice Pallaras’ concerns when he said: “Mr Talasasa’s regular and frequent absence for sporting tours or conferences, is both disruptive to the whole community and ruinous of attempts to expedite criminal trials.
“Not only are cases interrupted mid-way through to accommodate his traveling diary – which by the way keeps everyone else waiting, including the accused persons, witnesses, lawyers and the rest of the community who are waiting for their trials to start,” Justice Pallaras said.
“What is worse is no prosecutorial decisions of any consequence can be made until he re-enters the jurisdiction.
“This is because his prosecutors are not trusted with the delegated authority to make those decisions, so every other case, even those which the director is not personally involved in, has to wait.
“We all just put our pens and have a nap.”
Perhaps it’s time Mr Talasasa reconsiders his involvement in sports and direct his focus on his job.
Or if he has too many invitations to travel overseas, perhaps it’s time he pick from his pool of young and upcoming lawyers to attend on his behalf.
Either way, he would have time to attend to his official duties and ensure the expedition actions to court and other judicial matters.
As Justice Pallaras rightly pointed out, the country deserves the full-time service of its Director of Public Prosecutions.
