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PORT MORESBY - Solomon Islands newspapers have compared the prolonged detention of remand prisoners at Honiara's Rove Prison with that of Guantanamo Bay inmates.
But the island nation's Chief Justice Albert Palmer has labelled the comparison unwarranted and warned the media to be more responsible in its comments.
The Solomons judicial system was doing its best with limited funding and resources to "speed up the wheels of justice", he said.
The Guantanamo Bay comparison in editorials by The Solomon Star and The National Express newspapers was prompted by the hunger strike of 10 remand prisoners at Rove two weeks ago.
The inmates, at least one of whom has been on remand for three years, sent a letter to Palmer demanding their trials begin.
He instituted an urgent review and the inmates came off their hunger strikes after being notified of trial dates.
The Solomons' justice system is overloaded with murder and other serious criminal cases dating from the nation's period of ethnic unrest when law and order broke down and armed militants committed atrocities.
In its editorial, The Solomon Star compared the situation at Rove with that of terrorist suspects at the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention centre which it described as a "symbol of injustice and abuse".
"It may be wrong to make comparisons but it's a story that is familiar, especially to detainees in Guantanamo Bay, though it may be small in a way," the editorial said.
The National Express carried a similar editorial after interviewing local lawyers about the inmates' hunger strike.
But Palmer responded by saying the judiciary would like to see the many cases before the courts finalised much more quickly.
"But we must be realistic, the government can only provide so much support, our aid donors, generous as they are, do not have bottomless pockets and there are only eight working hours in a day," he said.
"It is regrettable that the media had cast an unwarranted slur upon our justice system.
"The position at Rove Prison has not been static and certainly not like Guantanamo Bay.
"We are doing all we can to speed up the wheels of justice," Palmer said.
The Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), which arrived in mid-2003 to restore law and order, provides expatriate judges and lawyers to assist in clearing the country's backlog of criminal cases.
RAMSI has also been building new court and prison facilities in the island nation.
- AAP
