Lord Lasike

Lord Lasike was acquitted this morning on a charge of illegal possession of ammunitions without a license, after his appeal against his conviction was allowed by Tonga's Court of Appeal.

The former Speaker of the Tonga Legislative Assembly was appealing his conviction by Chief Justice Michael Scott, after a trial before judge alone at the Supreme Court in July, when he was fined $500 pa'anga.

Mr Justice Michael Moore, Mr Justice Peter Salmon and Mr Justice Ken Handley in their judgement, found that the judge's reliance on Section 47 of the Arms and Ammunition Act had resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

Section 47 placed a reverse onus on the accused after Crown has proved that the accused has ammunition in his possession or control.

"Every person who is proved to have had in his possession or under his control anything whatever containing any arm or ammunition shall, unless the contrary is proved, be deemed to have been in possession of such arm or ammunition", stated the section.

The Crown's position was that it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant Lord Lasike knew of the contents in the box, including the bullets and was therefore in possession of them. The appellant denied he had any knowledge of them.

Knowledge

The Appeal judges said that the judge made no finding that knowledge of the bullets was proved beyond reasonable doubt. He said he thought it was probable that the accused would have come to know what was in the box and that he did not believe Lasike's claim to know nothing of the contents. He found that the accused had not discharged the onus under Section 47.

"By not finding that knowledge of bullets had been proved beyond reasonable doubt the conviction cannot stand on that ground. We are confident that if the judge had been satisfied of such proof he would have held so," the Appeal judges ruled.