The Supreme Court has ruled in a summary judgment that the proprietors and staff of the the Kele'a newspaper are liable for damages amounting to TOP $500,000 arising out of a letter to the editor it published in October 2007 which defamed the Hon Prime Minister and his Economic Adviser, Rob Solomon.

The letter was purportedly in response to a letter that Rob Solomon wrote to the Matangi Tonga Online website defending Tonga by disputing the very erroneous and poor ranking for corruption that the organization Transparency International had given Tonga.

The letter Kele'a printed was from a Fifita Tau'ataina and contained false accusations against the Prime Minister and Rob Solomon. The offending letter stated, ...“Rob Solomon fails to inform the public he is one of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisors. That he was privately employed by the PM, Feleti Sevele, in his Shopping Centre, Molisi Tonga, prior to the torching of Nukualofa. That after the PM's crown business went up in ashes, his employer also the Prime Minister, appointed him as his own economic advisor, constituting what we know as favoritism and nepotism." This was totally false as Rob Solomon had never worked for the Prime Minister - rather he had worked for the Reserve Bank of Tonga and for the last Minister of Finance before joining the Prime Minister's Office.

After the Kele'a newspaper refused a request from the Prime Minister's Office in November 2007 for a retraction of the said letter and an apology, proceedings for defamation was initiated against them by the Economic Adviser. The Kele'a newspaper was also offered another opportunity to retract the offending letter and apologise in September 2008, but again they refused.

The Supreme Court handed down its summary judgement against the Kele'a in October 2008 after they consistently failed to file their statement of defence within the proscribed period. In January 2009 the Supreme Court refused an application from Kele'a to set aside this judgment. But what defence could they provide against a straight out lie?

As it stands now the proprietors of the Kele'a newspaper are legally forced to pay the $500,000 damages to the Economic Adviser Rob Solomon, in addition to the legal fees of his legal counsel. Prime Minister's Office, 08/04/09.