Editor,

AS long as we glue "monarchy" to whatever form of government we create, we should not be surprised whenever the King and the Privy Council manipulate or coerce the Judiciary. It happened in the past. It's happening now. And, it will happen again as long as Tonga's current "political sun" still shines. It is a logical consequence of being under a monarchy.

Surprisingly, the history of Tonga's Judiciary is predominantly characterized by freedom from being coerced and rarity of the Executive's interventions. Merely proclaiming or arguing that Tonga needs a neutral independent judiciary in a monarchical and cultured infested system adds nothing new to our political conversation. In fact, it produces more heat than light, and here's why.

The crux of our political problem does not have to do with the "know what" as much as it does with the "know how." Everyone understands that Tonga needs a neutral independent judiciary. Everyone understands that Tonga needs political transformation from monarchy to democracy. But repeatedly saying the same thing without offering possible solutions either dulls our political sensibilities or awakens our passions for unthinkable actions. Our dying desperate request is to beg the political and legal professionals, please, show us how we can create an independent judiciary in a monarchical system, because common sense tells us that trying to create a coerced-free judiciary in a monarchical system is like a fish trying to avoid wetness while swimming in the ocean. Our political conversations should move from the first act of the mind (understanding of the "what is" our judicial/political problem) to the second act of the mind (judging options on "how to" lessen or eliminate our judicial problem). By doing that, we will learn that sustaining a coerced-free judiciary under a monarchy is not as simple as saying it.

Before giving my solution to our judicial problem, I'd like to briefly respond to Mokofisi's blame that I've "muddied the water" by spinning away our conversation to the U. S contentious issues. First, judiciaries are not infallible. In Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It's Wrong, David Woodward documented how the U.S Judiciary had negatively influenced public morality through public policy decisions. We have no time here to examine that.

Second, while Constitutional Law students find no easy solution to the U.S Judiciary's imperial power to make decisions which can radically change and drastically opposed the culture and belief of the majority of the American people, Tonga's system has already dealt with that in the seemingly contradictions and paradoxes in our Constitution.
Lastly, I wanted to assert that it is possible for judiciaries to be politicized by political parties or be influenced by their own political ideologies and legal philosophies which can affect their interpretations of the Constitution. I've not seen that in Tonga, but it's about time to bring that issue to Tonga's public square. Two of the unanswered political questions we need to discuss as we move into 21st century's uncharted waters: "How the Judiciary is held accountable and by whom especially when they interpret the Constitution in a way that is radically changing the culture and degrading public morality? Or how far does the Judiciary measure up to the standard of accountability"?

Possibly, what is happening in the United States can also occur in the Pacific, and my point was not to degrade Tonga's Judiciary nor did I want to defend the government's corruptions or minimize the need for justice in Ashika tragedy's case. I was simply saying that an unbridled Judiciary can commit some grievous errors as Princeton's Professor of Jurisprudence and leading Natural Law theorist Dr. Robert George critiques Obama's view of the Judiciary's role:

"Where I believe President Obama errs is in his view of the proper role of the courts. In envisaging courts as agents of social change unconstrained by the text, logic, structure, and original understanding of the Constitution, he misunderstands the important but limited role of judges in our constitutional system. The judicial office is not a license for jurists to usurp the authority of legislators, or impose on the nation their preferred ideas about social justice or personal rights. When judges do that, in the name of a right to abortion, for example, or to redefine marriage or drive religion from public life, they betray the Constitution in whose name they purport to act."

I'm sure some of the readers will disagree with Dr. George, but the logic of his argument cannot be ignored.

Respectfully

Senituli Penitani

seni15266 [at] yahoo [dot] com [dot] au ( seni15266 [at] yahoo [dot] com [dot] au)