Third Supreme Court Judge for Tonga [1]
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - 10:08. Updated on Monday, July 27, 2015 - 16:44.
The Tonga Government, with support from the Commonwealth Secretariat, is to appoint a third Supreme Court Judge for a period of two years on Wednesday, May 7.
Mr Justice Shuster will be sworn in tomorrow at the Supreme Court.
The Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Sione Vuna Fa'otusia, said Tonga needed a third judge to help with the backlog of cases related to the riots of November 16, 2006.
"The basic principle of justice is that cases should be disposed immediately and like what Martin Luther King Jr said, 'justice delayed is justice denied', and we want to avoid this."
Commonwealth
Tonga requested financial assistance from the Commonwealth Secretariat for the Judge's salary.
Mr Justice Shuster was a Commonwealth High Court Judge and Judge Advocate for Armed Forces in Sierra Leone from 2003-07.
Prior to that he was the Senior Legal Advisor to Magistrates and District Judges at the Birmingham and Coventry Magistrate's Court in the United Kingdom in 2001-03.
He also has experience working in the Pacific, when he became Fiji's Principal State Counsel and occasional Acting Director of Public Prosecutions from 1999-2001.
Mr Justice Shuster was a Senior Crown Prosecutor in Northampton, UK and a Senior Lecturer at the Inns of Court Law School in London.
Vuna said that by the end of Justice Shuster's two-year term, Tonga may be able to appoint a local Supreme Court judge.