Tonga's Chief Justice Frederick Gordon Ward has offered his early resignation and will leave Tonga at the end of June, to take up a new position as the Chairman of the Appeal Court of Fiji.

Simi Tekiteki, the Secretary for Justice, today confirmed Chief Justice Ward's resignation and that a termination clause allows three months notice of resignation.

Since March it has been known that Chief Justice Ward was considering a position as the Chairman of the Appeal Court of Fiji, and Simi said that he would take up his new post in Suva in July.

Chief Justice Ward today confirmed that he has a 10 year working contract with the Tongan government from 1998 to 2008, and that he is resigning before the completion of the contract.

During the past year the relationship between Chief Justice Ward and the Tonga government became strained when he declared illegal and unlawful some Privy Council Ordinances in the government's attempts to ban the Taimi 'o Tonga newspaper. The Government ignored the Chief Justice's decision and proceeded to turn some of those Ordinances into Bills, later becoming law, after amending Clause 7 of the Tonga Constitution.

Chief Justice Ward first came to the South Pacific from England in 1979. He worked in Fiji for six and a half years, then five and a half years in the Solomon Islands, before he first came to Tonga in 1992.

Chief Justice ward was the last British Judge to have come to Tonga under an arrangement that dated back to 1905 whereby the British Government appointed chief Justices and judges for Tonga. Under this arrangement the British government topped up the local salary for the position to help provide a high standard. This program of salary subsidisation ended in 1995, when Chief Justice Ward completed his first term here. He took up a position in Cyprus.

In 1998 the Tongan Government recalled Chief Justice Ward and offered to pay his full salary without being supplemented by the British. The 1998 10-year contract was to expire in 2008.

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