By John McKechnie AO, KC
Dirk Schuiling was a young Dutch entomology student with an adventurous streak. After eight months working in the South Celebes, he spent time touring Indonesia before the fancy took him to visit Papua New Guinea.
Being aware that some paperwork might need to be completed, Dirk made his way to Jayapura in Papua to seek out the Papua New Guinea consulate. There was not one.
However a helpful Indonesian official came to his aid and advised Dirk that a permit was unnecessary so long as he held an onward air ticket. Helpful – but wrong.
Dirk purchased an onward air ticket from Port Moresby to Australia and on the 1st of June 1977, boarded an Air Nuigini flight for Wekak in Papua New Guinea. The smiling flight attendant, with nary a glance at Dirk’s documentation or enquiry as to a permit, showed him to his seat and the plane took off.
The flight was not direct to Wewak but stopped in Vanimo on the way. All passengers were ordered to disembark so their papers might be checked.
Dirk’s turn soon came. The first document to be inspected was his vaccination certificate.
Uh Oh.
His cholera vaccination was overdue. Consternation among officials. Arrangements were made to send him to the hospital. Dirk told them he had not received a permit yet, but no one paid much attention. The health matter was more urgent.
At the hospital a doctor administered the cholera vaccination and for good measure gave him two drops of polio vaccine as well. Then he asked about Dirk’s permit. No? No problem, I will ring the police to issue you with a permit.
In due course Dirk accompanied police back to the station and told them his story. The response – Dirk was arrested and placed in the cells overnight. Chief Inspector Alphonse Krau charged Dirk with being a prohibited immigrant.
Next morning, Dirk appeared in court before the local magistrate and was sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour at the Boram Correctional Institution. As the Institution was in Wewak, Dirk finally reached his destination. His adventure had turned to a nightmare.
He contacted the Acting Public Solicitor and 19 days later an appeal was listed urgently before Justice Kearney.
The Judge was scathing. Although the conviction was proper in law, the prosecution should never have been brought. While Dirk was a prohibited immigrant, he was not a surreptitious border-hopper, crossing by stealth in the night, or by forged documents, or trickery, or by evading an officer; nor had he attempted any of those things. He was simply an international travellers caught up in one of the many entanglements of modern travel; he acted honestly throughout, exhibiting some of the fecklessness of youth.
The Judge singled out Air Nuigini for special criticism. Had a check been carried out in Jayapura, Dirk would never have been allowed to board the aircraft and none of this trouble would have occurred. Dirk should have been treated with courtesy and consideration until the tangle had been unravelled.
Justice Kearney reduced the sentence to 19 days, the time he had already spent in prison and released Dirk from imprisonment. In due course, all was sorted out and Dirk left Papua New Guinea.
Dirk Schuiling completed a master’s degree and is a respected scientist.
Chief Inspector Alphonse Krau, who laid the charge, retired from the police after a life of community service and was awarded an MBE. In 2013, while trying to break up a fight, he was brutally murdered.
Sir John Kearney, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea from 1976 to 1982, was appointed a judge of the Northern Territory Supreme Court in 1982 and served with distinction until 1999. He was awarded a CBE in 1976 and made a Knight Bachelor in 1982.
At his farewell from the bench in 1999, he was described as ‘patient, detached, courteous and fair’. On one occasion in June 1976, his detachment gave way to palpable anger at the injustice occasioned to an innocent young traveller.
Adapted from Schuiling v Krau (1977) PNGLR 176.
