Editor,
Regarding your report from the House on CEDAW yesterday; I recall your 2009 report on the Parliament’s 21-1 vote against ratifying CEDAW; it included Prime Minister Pōhiva who voted against ratification.
It is, therefore, as clear as noonday to me that the Cabinet (the Executive Branch) has usurped Parliament’s (Legislative Assembly) duty to undo this piece of “legislation” by bureaucratic fiat (arbitrary order). Parliament has not passed legislation re-authorizing the ratification of CEDAW if it has previously voted against it.
I see a tyrant Executive Branch of our democratic Constitutional Monarchy gathering “de facto” power that it does not have. This illegal act needs to be “censored” by the Legislative Branch and a “law review” conducted by the Judiciary Branch.
This tyrannical legislation by fiat we are seeing exhibited by the Pōhiva Government is the same tool used by all failed Banana Republics – dictatorships masquerading as democracies.
They take us all as their “useful idiots” that we are not capable of thinking for ourselves. By their actions they think they’re above the rule of law that applies to the rest of us.
This de facto CEDAW ratification must be authorized by Parliament who voted against it in 2009.
Sione Ake-mei-hakau Mokofisi
Director: English, Journalism & Languages
Tonga International Academy
