The Constitution of Papua New Guinea left the judiciary of PNG in a somewhat anomalous position, deeming as it did the case law of the English superior courts as of the date of PNG Independence to be part of the "underlying law" of Papua New Guinea (i.e. the indigenous common law) whereas the decisions of the pre-Independence Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea were to be foreign law, on an equal footing as to persuasiveness with the decisions of other superior courts in countries having similar legal systems — most obviously Australia, but also New Zealand and Canada, as well as post-1975 England. This left the post-Independence PNG courts with somewhat a clean slate, though given that the immediately post-Independence Supreme and National Court personnel were the same as those who had occupied the Bench immediately prior to Independence, it was not immediately apparent that this was a conundrum.