Transcript
LORD FUSITU'A: The move by government to combine the current Office of the Commissioner for Public Relations and the Anti-Corruption Commissioner's office. So the move by government to merge these two posts is part of a legislative package whereby the Commissioner for Public Relations, which is our equivalent to the Ombudsman, and the Anti-Corruption Commissioner will be merged into one office, for budgetary reasons. The Commissioner for Public Relations, or Ombudsman, receives more administrative law type complaints whereas the Anti-Corruption Commissioner would deal with out and out corruption, theft, embezzlement, etcetera etcetera. So there is a distinction between the roles which is concern. The second concern is the legislative package also removes the current requirement that the Anti-Corruption Commissioner carry the equivalence of a judicial officer, which is a Supreme Court judge, and finally initially they made overtures that they wanted the appointment made by the PM and Cabinet. We are told now that they want to send it to the House and have the Commissioner appointed by the Speaker with the consent to the legislature, so it will end up being voted upon. There's not that necessarily any problem with that process. My only concern [is] that the office and the officer remain independent and do not become politicised. So whether it's appointed by Cabinet and the PM or by us in the Legislature and the Speaker, there is still a possibility that the office will become politicised because whoever is appointed to that office would have sensitivities about investigating and recommending prosecution about the powers that appointed him.
KORO VAKA'UTA: You are not too fussed about the procedure as long as it gets to someone independent and transparent, is that right?
LF: The ultimate goal is to ensure independence and transparency. The reason I have been advocating for an appointment immediately as a Commissioner, under the current legislation, is that my assessment, both as an MP and as a barrister and solicitor for nearly two decades now and someone who has been involved in drafting legislation, is that the current appointment process is the most independent. His Majesty is not impacted by this investigative process. He has no self-interest in who is appointed and that being the case, I feel that it is the most independent procedure. You will notice that there has been some debate and conjecture recently from particular members of House regarding a stalemate in implementation of government policy. There seems to be a feeling that there is some obstacles from management to middle management levels of government. The examples used were the Police Commissioner and the Attorney-General, and now we are discussing the Anti-Corruption Commissioner. All these three posts are appointed by His Majesty and Council. My concern is whether this is a coincidence and their arguments that the day to day operations of these various offices are impacted by the fact that they are appointed by His Majesty and Council which strictly speaking, on an operational level, doesn't make all that much sense.