Papua New Guinea Law

The Underlying Law Act 2000

The Underlying Law Act 2000 adopted the sources of the underlying law as customary law and the common law of England in force immediately before independence. The Act provides for methods and processes for developing the underlying law.

For commentary on the Act and its implications, see:

Finding Legislation

The Papua New Guinea National Parliament website includes Acts as passed 2012-current 

• Note that although this is up to the current year, the PacLII Acts as passed appears to have slightly more recent Acts - see PacLII information below.

Other sources of legislation

The Legislature

Papua New Guinea has a unicameral National Parliament. Parliament was first created in 1964 as the House of Assembly of Papua and New Guinea. It became the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea in 1975 at independence.

See more on the About our Parliament page on the Parliament website.

National Research Institute