Constitution of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea's constitution was adopted at independence on 16 September 1975 by a self-declared National Constituent Assembly of pre-independence House of Assembly members, drawing authority directly from the country's own people rather than a foreign parliament, and it replaced the colonial legal framework administered by Australia. It was shaped from 1973 to 1975 by a Constitutional Planning Committee led by John Momis that held 381 public meetings attended by roughly 60,000 people, and it establishes a constitutional monarchy with the British monarch as head of state represented by a governor-general, entrenched clauses that override conflicting ordinary statutes, and an underlying law combining custom, English common law as it stood in 1975 and Papua New Guinea's own developing jurisprudence; at enactment it was the world's third-longest constitution.