Justice Is Donne

Ordering the unseating of the government of Sir Albert Henry, the Chief Justice of the Cook Islands, Mr Justice Donne, accused it of corruption of a magnitude unknown in the electoral history of New Zealand, Australia,or Britain.

In a 70-page decision handed down in July he ruled that Sir Albert and other members of his Cook Islands Party had bribed voters by providing virtually free flights to Rarotonga for the gen eral election of March 31 in return for electoral support.

He concluded that the flights had been unlawfully paid for out of public funds “a clear breach or breaches of the Public Moneys Act”. “I can imagine no greater perversion of represen tative democracy,” said Mr Justice Donne, “than that huge sums of public money be secretly used by candidates to facilitate bribery of hundreds of voters and thereby secure their re election.”

In a separate judgment on allegations of the “corrupt practice of treating” by the successful Cook Islands Party candidate on the island of Mitiaro, Mr Justice Donne found a case had been established and ordered a by-election.

On the main charges Mr Justice Donne found that on January 12 Sir Albert wrote to Mr Finbar Kenny, an American with a major interest in the Cook Islands Philatelic Bureau, seeking financial help for his election campaign. His letter advised Mr Kenny that he intended chartering aircraft to carry party supporters to Raro tonga to vote. As a result, Mr Kenny’s representative in Raro

tonga, Mr J. W. Little, was told to make an advance available against stamp bureau revenue.

With this assurance of finance, Sir Albert went to New Zealand later in the month and spoke about free flights for voters at meetings of Cook Islanders in Tokoroa, Wellington and Auckland.

In February, Sir Albert visited Melbourne, where he arranged the charter of three aircraft from Ansett Airlines, before flying to Hololulu to report the result of his negotiations to Mr

Kenny.

On March 13 he wrote to the director of the stamp bureau in Rarotonga to say the Cook Islands Government New Projects Co Ltd a company incorporated a week earlier “wishes to assist in the financing of a major project in the Cook Islands”.

“Substantial finance will be required and I would be pleased if you would forward to me a cheque in external funds for SNZ327 000 made out to the above company,” wrote Sir Albert.

The letter said the sum was to be regarded as an advance to the Cook Islands Government against future stamp bureau rev enue.

Sir Albert received a cheque from the bureau for $337 000 not $327 000 as mentioned in the letter and it was paid into the company account in New Zealand. On March 17, the sum of $335 000 was transferred from the account of the Cook Islands Government New Projects Co to another account in the name of the Ipukarea Development Co Ltd. It was from this account that Ansett Airlines was paid $290 000 for six return flights to

Rarotonga.