Tonga's former Prime Minister Lord Sevele is calling for a judicial review of the report of a parliamentary select committee that investigated the loan funding for the reconstruction of Nuku'alofa.

Lord Sevele and the former Minister of Transport, Paul Karalus filed an application with the Supreme Court, Nuku'alofa on November 30 for a judicial Review of the Report of a Parliamentary Select Committee on how a multi million government loan from China for the reconstruction of Nuku'alofa was spent.

The Application will be heard in the Nuku'alofa Supreme Court on 23 January 2013.

NDC Report

The report of the Parliamentary Select Committee, known as the Nuku'alofa Development Corporation (NDC) Report was debated in parliament for a month during September. In the end the House decided to pass the report onto an independent committee to be selected from members of the House's law and finance committees and was to be chaired by 'Aisake Eke.

The Acting Clerk of the House, Dr Sione Vikilani told Matangi Tonga that the Independent Committee had not been formed, and there had been no further deliberation over the NDC Report.

Costly exercise

The insistence by the present government for a report on how the previous government and the NDC administered the Chinese loan for the reconstruction of Nuku'alofa became an exercise that has cost the parliament and taxpayers estimated millions of pa'anga already.

Toward the end of the debating of the report in the House at the end of September, the Minister of Justice, Hon. Clive Edwards told the House that the report was of no use to government. There was a conviction by some Cabinet Ministers that the report was incomplete and it was not in accordance with the terms of reference that was approved by Parliament. He suggested that the best the House could do was to recognize the report and then pass it.

There was also a move by some Cabinet Ministers for the immunity of members of parliament from prosecution to be removed, to allow members of the public who were accused of wrong doing in the report to take the members of the committee to court.

Lord Sevele and Paul Karalus in their application for a judicial review claim that the committee departed from the Terms of Reference that was given by parliament, and engaged in unwarranted criticism of the previous Government's actions, and that their calling for criminal investigation and prosecution had seriously damaged their reputations.

The plaintiffs claimed that the report infringed natural justice, the Constitution and the Rules and Procedures of Parliament.  

They are seeking for the court to quash the report and for a declaration that the committee had breached the natural justice of the plaintiffs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Parliamentary committee was chaired by 'Akilisi Pohiva, and included Lord Lasike, Lord Tu'i'afitu, Dr Sitiveni Halapua, the Auditor General, Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa and an independent lawyer, Posesi Bloomfield.