Court rules for press freedoms in Tonga

By JOHN ANDREWS

Tonga's rulers have lost two further court cases in their battle to curb freedom of expression in the kingdom.

The Court of Appeal in Tonga has dismissed two appeals lodged by Government ministers and officials against people associated with Tonga's sole independent newspaper, Taimi 'o Tonga.

In both cases, the court awarded costs against the kingdom and its agents.

Kalafi Moala, publisher of the Taimi, believes costs arising from the two cases will exceed $1 million, funds Tonga's taxpayers can ill afford.

Dismissing an appeal by Tonga's Minister of Police, Clive Edwards, the court upheld a Supreme Court judgment in favour of Moala, MP Akilisi Pohiva and Taimi assistant editor Filokalafi Akauola, for their wrongful 26 days of imprisonment in 1996.

The court increased by $10,000 the general and aggravated damages awarded to each of the trio, bringing the total damages to $87,000.

For alleged contempt of Parliament, the three men, all law-abiding citizens were imprisoned without foundation in what was a clear breach of their rights under Tonga's constitution, the court said.

The case against the three arose from their involvement in a Taimi article about the pending impeachment of a Tongan Cabinet minister who attended the Atlanta Olympic Games after his leave application was refused.



The court also ruled that efforts by Tonga to ban the twice-weekly Taimi from distribution in the kingdom were unlawful.

The court dismissed appeals by the kingdom, its Prime Minister, Prince Ulukalala Lavaka Ata, and Minister of Finance, Siosiua Utoikamanu, and awarded costs to Moalas Lali Media Group Ltd, Akauola and Moala himself.

But Moala believes the future of Taimi is not secure, regardless of the judgments in his favour.

He said Tonga's Parliament this week would debate a bill relating to news media, one clause of which involved press freedom.

"If it gets its way, the Government will be in control of the media regime through licensing, criteria and editorial content," he said.

"They are continuing to come up with ways to curb media freedom, which will affect us and all other media in Tonga."

Of the appeal court judgments, Moala said: "To me they demonstrate one thing, that the decision-making process in Tonga is outrageous. These guys who make decisions rarely think through the consequences."

Moala, who paid his own legal expenses, intends seeking redress from the Tongan Government for about $320,000 for lost sales and advertising, as well as payment of staff salaries during the four months the newspaper was banned from the kingdom.

"They have a way of trying to delay these things, but we will get paid," he said.

"We did not have the resources to take them to court but we felt we had to. We had to cut costs to survive. It was a fight we had to put up ourselves.

"If we had walked away from it [Taimi], we would have been sanctioning it and they would have been encouraged to do it to someone else."

He regards the reported arrest of Mateni Tapueluelu, Taimi's editor, in Tonga last week as a further case of harassment by Tongan authorities against the newspaper, coming as did on the eve of the latest judgments.