Commonwealth countries must ensure that measures to tackle terrorism do not unduly impinge on the rights of the people, said Ms Betty Mould-Iddrisu, the Director of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, visiting Tonga this week.

Betty came from London to participate and to speak at the 23rd annual meeting of the Pacific Islands Law Officers Meeting ,PILOM, which opened at the Janful International Dateline Hotel on September 27.

"I am here to give them our support and to find out how can we assist them, to bring them up to date on what we are doing in legal matters," she said.

On September 28 Betty spoke on the topic 'Legislating Against Terrorism and the International Criminal Court'.

Betty said that with regards to the threat of terrorism, the Commonwealth condemned terrorism, and that the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 of September 2001 aimed at ensuring that there exists a strong legal and institutional mechanism to prevent and suppress terrorism and terrorist financing.

She said that the Commonwealth had created special legal regime for Commonwealth member countries to deal with terrorism and terrorism-related offences, and that the Commonwealth objectives remained that any measures taken should comply with Commonwealth's fundamental political values of respect for human rights and the rule of law, and that the protection of human rights must remain paramount. So countries must at all times ensure that measures to tackle terrorism do not unduly impinge on the rights of the people.

With regards to pre-emptive action against alleged terrorists, she said that governments should exercise caution in balancing the need to protect the rights of the suspects and to ensure the security of the nation and its citizens.

Tonga was one of the first countries in the world to comply with all UN anti terrorist legal requirements.

With regard to constitutional matters, one of the issues that Betty deals with regularly in the course of her work, a specific area that they are looking at now, is the relationship between government, the executive, the judiciary and the legislature. "We do a lot of work on the rule of law, democracy, and general elections."

Betty did not want to make a comment on Tonga's constitutional monarchy form of government, but she said that with a monarchy and even with a constitutional monarchy system of government "it is a bit tricky to keep a balance."