The swearing in of Labour list MP Soraya Peke-Mason to Parliament on October 25 will mark a milestone for women in Aotearoa New Zealand.

For the first time in its history, women in New Zealand’s Parliament will have an equal share of seats in the House.

“That’s quite significant,” Peke-Mason said. “It really shows the maturity of Aotearoa in terms of equity from a gender perspective.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said reaching the milestone was “significant and heartening”.

“Our Parliament will always be better when the diversity of voices in New Zealand are heard in our law making and government.

“The Labour Party in particular has been deeply committed to having equality of representation within our own caucus and we are really excited to welcome Soraya to our team.”

Peke-Mason will also be the first MP sworn in by the new Speaker, her cousin Te Tai Hauāuru MP Adrian Rurawhe, and the first new MP pledging allegiance to the new king, Charles III.

Sworn in with Te Reo
Representing the Rangitīkei electorate and supported by kaumātua and whānau from the river and mountain tribes and Rangitīkei, she will be sworn in at 2pm, in Te Reo Māori, and will give her maiden speech at 5.45pm.

“It is an honour and a privilege to be going to Parliament to represent our rohe,” Peke-Mason said.

“Over the last one or two decades my work has taken me across the Whanganui, the Ruapehu and the Rangitīkei districts.

“I’m excited and proud to be able to represent our rohe, and for Te Awa Tupua, for Rangitīkei, for all of us to have another strong voice at a table that makes really important and hard decisions on behalf of Aotearoa.”

It is two years since Peke-Mason missed out at the 2020 election. Her elevation to Parliament was announced in June after news that Kris Faafoi would leave politics and Trevor Mallard would move on to a diplomatic posting.

Peke-Mason, who lives at Rātana south of Whanganui, was Rangitīkei’s first wahine Māori councillor for 12 years until 2019, when she unsuccessfully ran for Horizons Regional Council.

In 2020, she stood in the general election in Rangitīkei against incumbent Ian McKelvie and was ranked No 60 on the Labour list.

‘You just get on with it’
“After the results of the last election, there was a possibility that I could enter Parliament but you just get on with it. You leave that there to the side and you just get on with your mahi at home.”

She was appointed to the Whanganui District Health Board and to its Hauora ā Iwi Relationship Board. She also helped lead the Whanganui Māori Regional Tourism board, was a member of Rangitīkei District Council’s Te Roopu Ahi Kā and held a number of iwi Māori and Māori trust governance roles.

“I’ve had plenty of time to be able to exit the work that I’ve been doing in the rohe, to tidy up those loose ends, to finish up projects properly, look at replacements, and work with Māori authorities that I’ve done work for to ensure there’s an appropriate exit process so that they’re not left in the lurch,” she said.

“And I’ve also been able to exit some of the boards I’ve been on.

“I’ve been lucky to have the time to do that. Not every MP gets that time.”

Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Samoa’s Court of Appeal ruled today that the Faatuatua ile Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) party was the country’s new government bringing three months of political stalemate to a close.

The court, the highest in the country, found that a swearing-in ceremony conducted by the party on the lawns of Parliament on May 24 was in fact legally binding, immediately installing FAST as the nation’s new government and declaring it had been so for nearly two months.

The decision apparently brings to an end the 22-year reign of Tuila’epa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi as the nation’s Prime Minister.

Under the court order he will be succeeded by Samoa’s first female Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa.

In their conclusion, the Court of Appeal said to avoid doubt Samoa has had a lawful government since May 24, namely that led by the FAST party.

The decision also ends nearly four decades of uninterrupted political dominance by the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), which first won government in 1982.

Fiame is a former member of Tuila’epa’s government and Deputy Prime Minister who quit the ruling party last September over what she said were plans to dismantle the rule of law in the form of three bills that were passed into law in December.

Widespread criticism
The bills drew widespread criticism for their effect on the independence of the courts from legal experts and the nation’s judges.

Fiame led the newly created FAST party to a slender one-seat victory 26-25 following the holding of April 9 national elections.

The impromptu swearing-in was held on May 24 — the last day on which Parliament was obliged to meet after a national election according to a stipulation in the nation’s constitution.

That ceremony, which was boycotted by HRPP members and the Head of State, was conducted before a majority of FAST Members of Parliament and followed a Supreme Court order the day prior ruling that must Parliament convene.

But the ceremony was held outside the Legislative Assembly building after the former Speaker of the Parliament, Leaupepe Toleafoa Faafis, ordered that it be locked down.

While the swearing-in was previously struck down by the Supreme Court, the FAST party argued that it needed to be held out of the “principle of necessity”, namely to stop the breach of that constitutional requirement.

The Chief Justice, Satiu Simativa Perese, alongside Justice Niava Mata Tuatagaloa and Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren delivered the decision at 4.30 pm this afternoon.

Legal challenges
Since then the swearing-in HRPP’s numbers on the floor of of Parliament has fallen by seven to reach 18 following successful seat-by-seat post-election legal challenges to its election victories that will result in fresh byelection contests.

The HRPP and the Head of State have ignored decisions instructing them to convene Parliament that they could not do so until all Members of Parliament were represented in the Legislative Assembly, particularly women MPs who are required to make up 10 percent of all legislators under a constitutional mandate.

The panel of justices said it did not recognise the caretaker government being legitimate and said it was unlawfully occupying office.

The court also ruled that the role of the Head of State in swearing-in the Speaker and members of the FAST are ceremonial roles to administer the swearing-in where the oath is to the Almighty God.

The appeal from the Attorney-General’s Office was dismissed and the cross appeal from the FAST party upheld.

The question of whether the courts have the legal right to force Parliament to sit in cases where the constitution had been violated, or whether that power was exclusively vested in the Head of State, lay at the heart of the case, which was held last week.

In that hearing, arguing on behalf of the Samoa Law Society, New Zealand QC Robert Lithgow said something had stood in the way of the Legislative Assembly convening despite the court’s clear power to force Parliament to sit within a day.

Constitution’s ‘higher purpose’
He said the constitution, as the supreme law of the land, could not be “bolted” down by interested parties but it had a broader, higher purpose: protecting the central interests of the Samoan people as expressed by them in their recent election.

Friday’s decision came as a surprise to parties involved in the case, who had previously been under the impression that a decision would not be handed down until Monday next week.

A notification that a decision on the matter had been reached was only sent to involved parties at about five minutes past 4 pm this afternoon with the decision handed down shortly after at about 4.30 pm.

The HRPP was added as a party to the Supreme Court case but no comment has yet been made by Tuila’epa or any of its other representatives.

In late May, Tuila’epa promised to abide by any ruling by Samoa’s highest court on the issue of the validity of the swearing-in.

Lanuola Tusani Tupufia-Ah Tong is a Samoa Observer journalist. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The FAST Party in Samoa has filed an application with the Supreme Court to have it recognise an impromptu swearing-in ceremony of elected members of the new political party.

At the beginning of last week the court ruled the ceremony illegal as the Head of State was not present.

But it said Parliament must sit by this Monday or it could reconsider the previous swearing conducted in a tent in the parliament grounds after newly elected members were locked out of Parliament.

At the time the Fast Party leader Fiame Naomi Mata’afa described the open air ceremony on May 24 as a legal option, applying the principle of necessity, because all other avenues were blocked.

On Sunday night the Head of State went on television to defy the court ruling and push the convening of Parliament out by another month.

On Monday, the rival Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) wrote to police to lay a complaint over the impromptu swearing in, saying they wanted it investigated as a potentially criminal event.

The police commander, Fuiavailili Egon Keil, has set up an investigating committee.

Chief Justice branded ‘incompetent’
The HRPP has labelled Chief Justice Satiu Simativa Perese as incompetent in an official complaint.

The complaint allegedly follows recent decisions by the Supreme Court where some acts of gift giving have been allowed as being culturally accepted.

The Samoa Observer reports the complaint was made in a letter from HRPP secretary Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi to the Judicial Services Commission.

It said the Chief Justice appears to be incompetent in the handling of HRPP cases since the beginning of electoral petitions.

The letter added that his rulings did not appear to be in accordance with the law, basic legal principles and well established precedent.

It said Satiu was unlikely to be familiar with the express exclusion of fa’asamoa and giving money during the elections to voters.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Samoa’s constitutional crisis deepened today with the party that commands the majority of seats locked out of Parliament, but still insisting it can form a government today.

The FAST party, its leader Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and a large number of supporters gathered in a tent on the lawn in front of the Fale Fono (parliament house) in Apia, where there was a heavy police presence.

The officers were unarmed and wearing green shirts, RNZ Pacific’s correspondent said.

But the doors to the building were locked, with the Clerk of the House and caretaker Speaker of Parliament insisting there is no sitting today – a decision that directly contravenes a Supreme Court order.

It is the latest twist in a weekend of shock developments that have spiralled into the biggest political turmoil seen in Samoa in decades.

Parliament was due to sit today for the swearing in of MPs after the April 9 election. The sitting was ordered by the Supreme Court last week, after it overruled the Head of State’s decision to call a second election, in order to break a deadlock that resulted from the election.

A later Supreme Court decision handed the FAST party a 26-25 seat majority, opening the way for Fiame Naomi Mata’afa to become Samoa’s first woman prime minister.

Parliamentary sitting ‘cancelled’
Just before midnight on Saturday, local time, the Head of State, Tuimaleali’ifano Va’aleto’a Sualauvi II, cancelled today’s sitting of Parliament without explanation. He is understood to now be in his home village of Matautu-Falelatai, while a constitutional and political crisis has come to a head in Apia.

Not surprisingly, Pacific leaders have not commented publicly on the events in Samoa although there is a growing call for leaders to do so. It will be interesting to see whether Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna will make a statement on his first day on the job. https://t.co/T6NxylIYR0

— Dr Anna Powles (@AnnaPowles) May 23, 2021

In an extraordinary hearing on Sunday the Supreme Court again overruled the head of state’s decision, calling for Parliament to sit today. Under the constitution, Parliament must sit within 45 days of an election. Today is the last day for this to be possible.

On Sunday night, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Leaupepe Taimaaiono Toleafoa Faafisi, a member of the caretaker Human Rights Protection Party, said he would abide by the Head of State’s call, not the Supreme Court ruling.

Today, Fiame and FAST party supporters went to Parliament anyway, saying the HRPP was ignoring the rule of law. There was a heavy police presence, and supporters were singing hymns from the country’s struggle for independence more than 50 years ago.

Escorted by the police commissioner, Fuiavali’i Egon Keil, the Chief Justice and other judges walked to Parliament to inspect proceedings, tried to open the locked door, and returned down the road to the courthouse.

“What we have just seen is the judiciary witnessing their ruling has not been upheld,” said Fiame in an address to the crowd. “The numbers have been met. We can continue with the process by legal means. We can convene Parliament with 26 members of parliament.”

Soon after, the clerk of the house, Tiatia Lima Graeme Tualaulelei, arrived for a tense discussion with the FAST party, where he explained he was merely following instructions from the Speaker of parliament and the caretaker Minister of Parliament.

The caretaker Minister of Parliament is the HRPP leader and caretaker Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi.

With neither side currently budging, the standoff looks set to continue well into the rest of the day, with little certainty over how it will be resolved.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz