Chief justice

to stay

In early February, Vanuatu’s Justice minister, former prime minister Walter Lini, in a surprise move, renewed Chief Justice Charles Vaudin d’lmecourt’s contract in spite of earlier threats Lini made that the British judge would have to leave the country at the end of March.

Lini, and then prime minister Serge Vohor approved another two-year con tract for the judge, who arrived on the island state four years ago under a British-funded contract.

In May last year, Australian justice Robert Kent (from Melbourne Queen’s Council-Australia), who had been work ing in Vanuatu since early 1994, resigned from his position because he was “concerned over the independence of the chief justice”.

At the same time, opposition leader Donald Kalpokas’s Vanuaaku Pati (VP) and Lini’s National United Party (NUP), called for d’lmecourt’s “immediate res

ignation”.

In 1994, after London refused to fur ther fund his position, he remained Vanuatu’s chief justice, but his present contract, which expires next June, has since been paid by the Vanuatu govern ment with help from overseas donors.

Since last year, the Vanuatu govern ment has received funds for this position from Technical and Cultural Co-opera tion Agency, a worldwide association of French-speaking countries, mainly

financed by France and Canada, to cover “on an exceptional basis” some SUS 100,000 for the remaining half of last year.

Vanuatu’s government has since last year requested about SUS2OO,OOO from the European Union for the chief justice in 1996, but until no\lv, no reply has been made by Brussels, the Planning Office earlier said.

It is not known yet where overseas aid to fund d’lmecourt’s new contract will come from, Lini admitted in

February.

“There was no recruitment procedure engaged to replace M. dTmecourt when we came in this government so it seemed as though we could only keep him. If he had left, we would have been left without a chief justice. During these two years, we’ll try to recruit someone else”, Lini said.

Prime minister Serge Vohor stressed the importance of having a bilingual

French-English judge in Vanuatu.

The Justice ministry here has said there was a need to keep dTmecourt to ensure “everything is done properly dur

ing this period of political instability”.

A crucial forthcoming case related to complaints fded in the Supreme Court

about alleged irregularities during last

November’s general elections and affecting some 40 MPs (out of 50), also needs to be dealt with by the British

judge. ■