Attorney General Wants to Remove All Supreme Court Judges

The Attorney General, Savalenoa Betham-Annandale.

By Lagi Keresoma

APIA, SAMOA – 27 MAY 2021: The Attorney General, representing the caretaker government’s two pending constitutional legal matters, asked the court this morning to disqualify all the Supreme Court Judges from hearing the following two matters.

• The appeal on the 10% of women in Parliament argument that the Caretaker Government has relied on in saying that Parliament cannot be called unless this question is settled. This is scheduled for Monday next week.
• The Attorney General’s ex-parte motion against the purported opening of Parliament on Monday this week as unconstitutional.

It is the latest twist as the caretaker Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi announced on Tuesday this week that he doesn’t trust his party will get a fair hearing as he accused the judiciary of bias and named the judges personal links to the FAST Party leaders.

The Attorney General was herself not present in court and the application was made by counsel Fuimaono Sefo Ainu’u for recusal against all judges not to preside over election legal matters relating to the Fa’atuatua ile Atua Samoa ua Tasi – FAST party.

His Honour the Chief Justice, Satiu Simativa Perese wanted to know if the recusal application was for all judges and Fuimaono said “Yes”.

When the second application for recusal was made, the Chief Justice then asked Fuimaono about the authority the Attorney General’s office has over Court processes.

“What authority are you trying to determine how the Court runs its own processes?” His Honour asked.

Fuimaono said “none” but they are simply asking the Court for a fair trial and cited Article 9 of the Constitution’s ‘Right to a Fair Trial.’

Chief Justice Satiu pointed out that even him (Fuimaono) suggested that the Attorney General’s office can dictate how the Court carries out its own business.

He told Fuimano that the urgent matter that needed to be dealt with today was the ex-parte hearing of the motion but that would not happen due to Fuimaono’s irresponsibility for not serving the respondents accordingly, and now they have to postpone that hearing to next week.

FAST lawyer, Taulapapa Brenda Heather–Latu was only given a copy of their application in Court today.

The Appeal the 10% of women in Parliament
The hearing of the appeal is scheduled for Monday 31 May 2021 before Chief Justice Satiu, Justice Fepuleai Ameperosa Roma and Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren.

Chief Justice Satiu informed Fuimaono that the Court will hear his recusal application on Monday before the appeal hearing and if there is merit to the application, then the matter will be adjourned, but if there is no merit, then the Attorney General’s office would have to deal with the sitting.

When asked about the grounds of the application, Fuimaono said they are concerned about the “danger and biasness of the Court in dealing with all matters against FAST.”

The counsels involved – Fuimaono Sefo Ainuu of the AGs office, Aumua Ming Leung Wai, Mauga Precious Chang and Muriel Lui.

FAST had won all their legal cases against the Attorney General in the past weeks.

“This is what you are relying on?” the Chief Justice asked.

“That’s correct Your Honour but we also received yesterday another affidavit in relation to the conflict of interest of the Bench,” said Fuimaono.

The Chief Justice then noted that the matter should be heard prior to the appeal hearing on Monday but Fuimaono continued to argue that the matter be dealt with sooner.

“You have to understand that Monday is set for the appeal and your application will be dealt with as a jurisdiction issue before the appeal,” he said.

Fuimaono continued to raise issues pertaining to the integrity of the Court to which the Chief Justice responded on what basis he drew that conclusion from.

“As an officer of the Court, we apply impartiality to your application and if we find there is legitimate merit in the application, we will adjourn, but if there is no merit to the application, there is no reason why the case should not proceed,” said Chief Justice Satiu.

In a press release today, the Attorney General said the reasons for the application are to disqualify the Judges from sitting in this Court of Appeal given their potential conflicts of interest and potential favouritism.

“It is in our respectful view that the conflicts of interest of our Judges are from the following basis:

1. All FOUR (4) cases between FAST and the Government all went against the Government and favoured FAST (we can make available the copies of these cases for your viewing). These are very substantive cases and the fate of a government of the day is determined by these cases. If we look at the previous trends, all the decisions favour FAST!,” said the Attorney General.

The ex-parte motion that was supposed to be heard today is rescheduled for next week.

Counsels for the appeal are Muriel Lui and Mauga Precious Chang for FAST, Aumua Ming Leung Wai and the Attorney General for the first and second appellants.