Māteni Tapueluelu was legally elected, Tonga’s Court of Appeal said yesterday.
Kaniva News reports in a 19 page ruling dated April 8, Judges Moore, Handley, Blanchard and Tupou found his election was lawful and did not breach Clause 65 of the Constitution.
Clause 65 says that “no person may be chosen against whom an order has been made in any court in the Kingdom for the payment of a specific sum of money the whole or any part of which remains outstanding.”
However, the judges said Tapueluelu was not in breach of Clause 65 because the Court of Appeal had stayed a Magistrate’s judgement against him pending an appeal in 2012.
That stay was in force at the time of his nomination and election in 2014.
Tapueluelu had lodged an appeal with the Court of Appeal to overturn a declaration by Lord Chief Justice Paulsen that his election on November 27, 2014 as the People’s Representative of the Tongatapu 4 constituency was unlawful and invalid.
Lord Chief Justice Paulsen’s judgement was based on the fact that at the date of Tapueluelu’s nomination and election, there was a judgment against him from the Magistrate’s Court.
On June 17, 2011 Tapueluelu was held liable to pay veteran Tongan politician Clive Edwards $TP10,000 in damages and $TP4500 in costs in a civil action for defamation.
Tapueluelu lodged an appeal against the Magistrate’s decision, but his appeal had been struck out by the Supreme Court on the grounds of what the Appeals Court called “inordinate and inexcusable delay in the prosecution of the appeal.”
An application for leave to set aside the Supreme Court’s decision and for a stay of execution of the Magistrate’s Court’s judgment had been dismissed by the Supreme Court, but on August 30, 2012 a Judge of the Appeals Court gave him leave to appeal and ordered the Magistrate’s Court’s judgment to be stayed, pending the outcome of that appeal.
An attempt to overturn the Magistrate’s Court’s original judgment against him was dismissed by the Appeals Court in June 2015.
In its statement, the Appeals Court said that stay was in force when Tapueluelu was nominated, registered as a candidate, elected and took his oath of office as a People’s Representative.