Protests mounting against Tonga

By KEVIN TAYLOR

Calls are growing for Tonga's suspension from the Commonwealth after efforts to quash press freedom and end the right to seek judicial review of the country's laws.

The Tongan Government introduced a bill to Parliament this week changing the constitution to restrict press freedom and remove from judicial review laws and ordinances passed in the kingdom.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff said yesterday that the New Zealand Government would make a protest to the Tongan Government through its High Commission in Tonga.

He said the changes, particularly those qualifying press freedom, should be re-examined against the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But he did not go as far as backing calls by the Green Party and Progressive Coalition for Tonga to be suspended from the Commonwealth.

"This is not a case of a democratic system overturned by a military coup," Mr Goff said.

And he said cutting New Zealand's aid to Tonga, worth $5.6 million annually, would only punish ordinary people.

The Auckland-based publisher of the banned newspaper Taimi 'o Tonga (Times of Tonga), which is at the centre of the constitutional changes, said other countries, including New Zealand, should cut aid.

The publisher, Kalafi Moala, said the bill was a declaration of dictatorship by the Tongan Government and the issue had moved way beyond the ban on his newspaper.

Withdrawing international aid would make the Tongan Government sit up and take notice, he said.

He also supported Tonga's suspension from the Commonwealth.

The newspaper had won an order from Tongan Chief Justice Gordon Ward, a Briton, that a February ban on the publication was unconstitutional.

But King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, sitting as the chairman of the Privy Council, imposed a new ordinance again banning the newspaper - a law Justice Ward declared was illegal.

Two thousand copies of the newspaper remain in the hands of Tongan authorities and a monarch-backed daily, the Tonga Star, has begun a campaign to impeach Ward.

A legal opinion by Auckland lawyer Rodney Harrison, QC, who regularly appears in Tongan courts, slated the Tongan Government's planned constitutional changes.

The opinion, given to the Herald by Mr Moala, said the cumulative effect was potentially extremely serious.

Dr Harrison had said: "If held to be valid, they [the changes] would amount to an effective overturning of the current constitutional regime."

In particular, the plan to prohibit judicial review of laws and ordinances would "effectively put an end to the rule of law in the Kingdom of Tonga".

"It is hard to see how any self-respecting judge would be prepared to continue in office, or undertake office, under such a regime."

Dr Harrison declined to talk to the Herald.

The bill is likely to pass because the King appoints his Cabinet without election and for life terms, and they take 12 of the 30 seats in the assembly.

The kingdom's 33 nobles control nine seats, and the remaining nine seats are elected from the 100,000-strong commoner population.

Commonwealth Press Union New Zealand chairman and Herald editor-in-chief Gavin Ellis said the issue was indicative of "some disturbing trends" in Tonga.

It would be raised at a meeting of the CPU press freedom committee tomorrow.

Options for action included protesting directly to the Tongan Government, protesting through the New Zealand Government, and raising the issue with world newspaper bodies.

Greens foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke said the Commonwealth could not stand idly by while press freedom disappeared in Tonga.

New Zealand had strongly pushed for Commonwealth action against Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

What Tonga has done


* A bill introduced to the royal family-controlled Parliament radically changes the constitution.

* It prohibits laws or ordinances passed by the King, or any other matter specified by law, from being subject to judicial review in court.

* It prohibits freedom of speech or expression which infringes on the rights of others and cultural traditions, or violates public law and order and national security.

* It allows Parliament to restrict free speech for many reasons including public interest, national security, public order and morality, and for the protection of the royal family.

* New Zealand aid to Tonga totals $5.6 million a year.