Legislation forum held in Tonga to improve services [1]
Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - 23:05. Updated on Thursday, September 14, 2017 - 16:11.
Legal officers who draft legislation for governments in the Pacific region, met in Tonga last week, 23-24 August to share expertise at the Pacific Legislative Drafter’s Technical Forum.
Training was delivered by Mr Rupeni Nawaqakuta, who has worked in the Pacific region for many years.
A formal meeting on Friday, 25 August, was opened by Tonga's Minister for Justice and Prisons, and Chairman of Cabinet’s Law Committee, Hon Sione Vuna Fa’otusia.
The role of the Cabinet’s Law Committee is to examine draft government legislation for legal and policy compliance and present it to Cabinet for approval to be tabled at the Legislative Assembly. Once the Legislative Assembly approves the draft, it is presented to the King for Royal Assent, and then published in the Government Gazette to enforce it.
The forum was funded by the Australian Government and organized by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Attorney General’s Office of Tonga.
The Pacific Legislative Drafter’s Technical Forum started in 2007 and is an initiative of the 2006 Pacific Working Group on Legislative Drafting, coordinated by the Commonwealth Secretariat.
The forum came about when a mandate was given by the Commonwealth Law Minister to develop solutions in order to ease the problem of legislative drafting capacity constraints within small island countries.
Representatives from Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Commonwealth Secretariat and the Pacific Office of the International Federation of the Red Cross attended the forum. Legal counsel and policy officers from Tongan government ministries and agencies also attended.