Editor’s Comment, By Pesi Fonua

The resignation of Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho as the Acting Speaker of the Tonga Legislative Assembly, on Tuesday, 27 August, is the latest fiasco in parliament, since Tonga introduced a new political system at the end of 2010.

It is the first time that one of Tonga’s lawmakers, a noble of the realm, has publicly announced that he felt incompetent and was uncomfortable to remain in a leading role. He believed that under Tonga’s new system of government the people wanted to have the best person available to be the Speaker of the House, and he did not feel that he was up to it.

Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho’s resignation was broadcasted live throughout Tonga, and it also went worldwide through the fast fiber optic internet that Tonga had connected to six days earlier.

For a lawmaker, or one in the top echelons of the Tongan government to voluntarily resign from office, is unheard of. The norm is that one is either made to go or forced to resign.

This is the opposite of what is happening in countries with a Western form of democracy, where a government official in realising that he or she has abused public trust, will simply resign from office. In some countries they even go to the extreme and just fade away from public view.

Not so in Tonga.

While there was an overwhelming favourable public reaction to Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho’s resignation, there was unanimous opposition by members of the Tongan parliament. One People’s Representative shed real tears, while pleading with the Acting Speaker not to resign.

Criminal charges

Tonga's Minister of Justice, Hon. Clive Edwards, however, clarified the issue when he told the House that he knew why Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho resigned, and that was because a criminal case that had been laid against him by the police for the illegal possession of a firearm.

The Minister of Justice, a lawyer, advised Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho to remember that one was innocent until proven guilty in court. He reminded the Acting Speaker that a number of representative members and some Cabinet ministers, including himself, had been charged with criminal offences, but they had not resigned, they simply remained in the House and after numerous court hearings their cases were eventually cleared by the courts.

He also reminded the Acting Speaker that he was in a more favourable position now, since the maximum sentence for the illegal possession of firearms had been recently reduced to less than two years in jail and therefore, even if he was found guilty in court, he would not lose his noble title.

A bill to reduce the penalties on the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition was by passed parliament, but the late King George Tupou V did not give his consent. The bill, however, was reintroduced in 2012 and has since been enacted.

Weakness

The Acting Speaker’s resignation showed up the weakness in the new political system to deal with such issues. Both the Prime Minister and the Speaker were not in parliament when Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho announced his resignation, and that gave him the opportunity to go public.

The procedure for how the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker could resign is not clear. According to the ‘Rules for Proceeding of the Legislative Assembly’, if the Speaker is prevented by reasonable cause from presiding, the procedure is that the Prime Minister has to inform the King who shall appoint one of the nobles of the Legislature to preside temporarily.

On August 27, neither the Prime Minister nor the Speaker was in the House, so the King, most probably, has not been informed - though the whole world heard the Acting Speaker announce his resignation.

Nothing more was said in the House after Lord Tu‘iha‘ateiho made his historical declaration that he was resigning because he felt he had abused the Public Trust. And now, he is obviously continuing to be the Acting Speaker of the House.