Page 11 - IB AUG 2019

Politics

Out: Former Nauru President Baron Waqa. Photo: IISD

huge loss for Adeang and his camp. Aingimea is also inheriting a mess in the judiciary brought
The burning question now is how will Lionel Aingimea perform about by the previous administration’s prolonged and bitter
as president? prosecution of its political opponents.
In his first news interview with the government information Just a few months ago, the Waqa administration constituted
unit in Nauru after his election, President Aingimea said he was the Nauru court of appeal after cutting its long-standing links
ready to lead. with the Australian judiciary.
Now that he is the “father of the nation,” he sees the people This paved the way for the three-member court to find in favour
of Nauru as his children who needed his “protection and guid- of the government’s appeal against a permanent stay order an
ance” he said. independent judge from Australia had imposed on prosecutions
“My vision for Nauru is for us to work together, all members against the so-called Nauru 19.
of parliament, because everybody has a contribution, everyone. Retired Australian judge, Geoffrey Muecke was initially ap-
Everyone has ideas, everyone needs those ideas to be voiced pointed to the Nauru Supreme Court bench in March 2018. In
and when they need to be tempered, to be tempered. That’s my September he delivered a scathing judgement against Nauru’s
vision that we work together as a unit, for the prosperity and the government, saying its actions in pursuing the Nauru 19, MPS
betterment of Nauru.” and their supporters involved in an anti-government protest—was
President Aingimea is yet to make known his plans on the a “shameful affront to the rule of law.” Mueke further said the
Australian Government’s refugee processing centre on Nauru. group had no prospect of receiving a fair trial.
Opponents to Australia’s offshore processing program which The judge was particularly critical of Adeang as Justice Minister,
centres on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, say and had also ordered the Nauru government to pay court courts
the presence of some 300 refugees on Nauru is a humanitarian of about AU$300,000.
crisis that requires an urgent solution. The current status of the government’s case against the Nauru
Just a day before Nauru went to the polls, a refugee, believed to 19 is unclear.
be from Pakistan, set himself alight in protest about their plight These controversies are not new to President Aingimea.
on the island nation. The deportation of Nauru’s Australian resident magistrate in
New laws passed by the Waqa government had made it very 2014 and the refusal of an entry visa to its then Chief Justice
difficult to evacuate refugees to Australia for urgent medical Geoffrey Eames, also an Australian, occurred when Aingimea
treatment. was secretary of justice.

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