Vaini estate holder's grant of land unlawful
Tuesday, April 19, 2016 - 18:14
Havea Folau will have his name registered in a town allotment at Vaini village in Tongatapu, ordered the Lord Chief Justice who found that the Minister of Lands had no power in this circumstance to cancel the grant or make a grant of this same piece of land and register it in the name of another person, in a ruling on 18 April in the Land Court of Tonga in Nuku'alofa.
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Comments
Dear Sir,
I am extremely thankful that the Justice system here in Tonga still functions as it should, to punish the guilty and uphold good and law-abiding citizens in the land (Romans 13). Some times it can be hard to reach a just decision in cases like this when the defendants include the Minister of Land who is the title-holder of the land in question. However, the decision of the Land Court in favor of Havea Folau upholds justice and should consolidate good governance amongst our political leaders especially in issues regarding our land, land-holders as well as title-holders.
In my own reading of our Land Laws, it appears that when a land is registered under the name of a land-holder, such a person's right for the land is legally protected from a breach in any way. The only exception is a lack of hereditary holder next in line to own the land, when the current holder dies.
In matters where a particular piece of land has been abandoned for a long time by the land-holder, it is the legal duty of the Minister of Land to find out who the legal land-holder is, and to inform them, if registration of the land has expired for some times. For the land must to be re-registered by the legal land-holder.
This should provide us all with a sense of comfort knowing that even noble title-holders cannot freely remove our lands from us, if the land has been legally registered under our name.
Faka'apa'apa atu,
Rev Dr Ma'afu Palu