One in the bread basket

Tonga's Sunday observance laws got a serious battering in February when a judge held that as far as they applied to work or trading on Sunday the laws were unworkable and therefore invalid.

Mr. Justice Roberts, sitting in Nukualofa as Chief Magistrate, dis missed a charge brought against a master baker, Frank Cowley, that he had exercised his trade on a Sunday contrary to the Order in Public Places Act.

Mr Justice Roberts said the practice of baking bread on a Sunday in Tonga (although not the sale of bread) had been a Tongan custom for many years. Other customs included the supply of light and power, the care of hospital patients, the operation of the police force, the broad casting of church services by radio.

These things went on, as everybody knew, and in his view the appli cation of the provisions of the act were impossible to enforce and un workable.

Until the legislature clarified the law relating to work and trade in Tonga on Sunday so as to make it enforceable, the courts had to apply the law established by custom, Mr. Justice Roberts added.

In Nukualofa recently police have been attempting to enforce the Sunday observance laws with some vigour—and have even forbidden people to swim on a hot day (PIM, Jan., p. 27). Their actions have brought protests, and sparked a lively controversy. See “Up Front with the Editor”, p. 15.