A former Minister of Justice, Clive Edwards, who was awarded $14,500 in damages and costs by a Magistrate in a 2011 defamation case against the Kele'a newspaper and its editors, has filed a written submission to the court to review an appeal against the award.

On Monday, 19 January William Edwards Jr, counsel for the respondent Clive Edwards Sr, filed a letter to the Supreme Court Registrar asking for the appeal to be addressed. The three appellants are Laucala Tapueluelu, Mateni Tapueluelu (who is now the Tongatapu No.4 People’s Representative) and the Kele’a newspaper. The matter has been unattended for sometime.

The appeal arises out of a ruling by Salesi Mafi at the Magistrate’s Court on June 17, 2011 awarding Edwards a judgement sum of $10,000 and costs of $4,500.

The three parties appealed against this judgement later in the same month, which lead to numerous proceedings and submissions to the court. This included the appelllants' appeals to set aside the judgement followed by an application to strike out the jugdement submitted to the former Chief Justice, which was dismissed in 2012.

The respondent claimed that the appellants were either late in filing for an appeal with the Court of Appeal or failed to meet the proper requirements of an appeal.

“This appeal filed is questionable in many respects, where the respondent has been denied his award in damages delivered on June 17, 2011, together with his award for costs and we now seek a review of the file so that appropriate steps may be taken to bring this matter to an appropriate conclusion,” Edwards submitted.

He also put forth that there was no stay of execution of the judgement sought by the appellants in their appeal. He also submitted that the outstanding amounts were not paid before the November election when Mateni Taueluelu was elected to parliament.

"The judgment sum and costs were outstanding against the second appellant [Mateni Tapueluelu] on 27 November 2014....and it was not paid before the applicable date prior to elections, [therefore] his position as a parliamentarian is questionable, indeed tenuous," Edwards submitted.

He submitted that the sum was outstanding on the day in which the Second Appellant submitted his nomination paper to the Returning Officer according to Clause 65 of the Constitution. “In my view, it is grounds for disqualification of Mr Tapueluelu from Parliament, given the strict view taken by the Court of Appeal with regards to Judgments and sums outstanding when a person submits his nomination paper to the Commission of Elections.”

Mateni is a son in law of the new Prime Minister 'Akilisi Pohiva.

The Supreme Court has not set a date as to when this matter will be called before Chief Justice Paulsen.