12 Apr 2008

Nauru speaker suspends all government members

9:32 am on 12 April 2008

The Speaker of the Nauru Parliament, Opposition MP, David Adeang, says he has suspended all nine Government MPs.

For weeks, parliament has been in a deadlock with both sides having nine MPs.

Mr Adeang says on Thursday evening he was forced to invoke disciplinary measures because of what he called unruly and shameful behaviour by the Government MPs.

He says this included personal insults hurled at him while he was delivering a statement on this week's decision by the Supreme Court.

That decision was strongly critical of Mr Adeang's actions in calling a session of Parliament for which the Government MPs received no notification and at which controversial amendments were made to the Citizenship Act.

The Chief Justice declared that those amendments had no validity.