Parliament debates bill on Lands and Titles Court

Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has called for inquiry into the work of the Land and Titles Court during a parliament session and hinted a move to contract judges

The notion was triggered when the PM said he has received a lot of complaints written to him from members of the public regarding the decisions made in the Lands and Titles Court allegedly being false or unfair.

“When they write to me and ask me for help, I certainly cannot sit still because it is my job to answer to what the country needs,” said PM Tuilaepa.

 “There are cases where they say that there was a case before that proved one decision and now they take back into court and they made a much different one contradicting themselves, so somewhere in there, lies the problem, and we’re looking  at contracting the justices to ensure they are transparent,” he said.

The Ministry of Justice only contracts its Executive employees except the judges. The move by the PM though raises more questions of the checks and balances act, where one branch of a democratic government should not interfere with another’s.

“The two branches should not engage into the others power or duties because they should be independent from each other, however, that does not stop them from questioning each other in order to keep each branch accountable and transparent,” he says.

“This is not a government notion, this is through Parliament, and Parliament is the most powerful part of this country, because it has all the district representatives sitting in one house and they all throw in their two cents on how this country should work, so it’s not by the government, but by parliament,” said Tuilaepa.

Media and Political experts are calling it a cunning move by PM Tuilaepa as he was the one who tabled the bill in Parliament, taken that HRPP rules the majority of Parliament seats with 47 to Tautua Samoa’s 3.

He assures though that he has assigned the remaining members of HRPP to become an accredited opposition in parliament.

                                     

     

Author: 
Joshua Lafoai