Buri Kidu

Sir Buri Kidu was the first native-born national to serve as Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea, holding the office from 1980 to 1993. Born on 8 August 1945 and educated in Australia at Toowoomba Grammar School and the University of Queensland, where he earned his law degree in 1970, he rose through the roles of legal officer, crown prosecutor, crown solicitor and secretary of justice before his appointment as chief justice, and was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980. As chief justice he worked to secure the courts a separate parliamentary appropriation and to protect judicial independence from the executive and legislature, a stance thought to have contributed to the government of Prime Minister Paias Wingti declining to reappoint him when his term ended in 1993. He died on 30 January 1994.