Results for Law

A study of the level of corruption in Tonga is expected to be completed before the end of the year, and made public by March 2004. Dr Peter Larmour, from the National Centre for Development Studies at the Australian National University, the institution carrying out the study, said in Nuku'‘alofa at the end of October that they will use the National Integrity Systems approach that was pioneered by Transparency International, and had been successfully carried out in 18 countries. -Matangi Tonga, Vol. 18, No. 3

The Tonga government has introduced one of the heaviest penalties for drug offenders imposed by any government in the region.

The Tongan way of life is not based in the right of the individual but that of the extended family, the church and the whole country. We have a collective peoples value, and that is where our strength is, and we do not want to give that up, says ‘Alisi Taumoepeau, Tonga’s Solicitor General. From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 18, no. 2, August 2003.

It was important for Tonga to make up its mind on whether to link its legal practices to the British legal system or to the Australian and New Zealand legal system, Laki Niu, the president of the Tongan Law Society told a dinner to mark the end of the 1998 Tonga Court of Appeal.