Chief Justice dismisses $5.75 million damages claim by Lord Tu'ivakano in ‘Tongan passports scandal’

Nuku'alofa’s Supreme Court has thrown out a civil claim by a former Prime Minister, Lord Tu'ivakano, who was seeking $5.75 million pa'anga in damages from the Kingdom of Tonga and others, for alleged “malicious prosecution” of him on criminal charges relating to the so-called ‘Tongan Passports Scandal’. The Lord Chief Justice M. H. Whitten, in a 78-page judgment on 28 October, set out details of how the passports investigation began and listed evidence collected by the Serious Organised Transnational Crime Unit. “I find that there was no evidence of any improper purpose for the prosecution. The only purpose discernible from the evidence was the proper invocation of the criminal law,” he stated.