Transcript
MATHEW BATSIUA: People are subpoenaed to give evidence in court for all sorts of reason and I think the government should be more interested in those people complying with summonses from the court and also more interested in making sure that people who do attend court proceedings tell the truth, and not be bothered about whether or not they are four government or anti government, because at the end of the day when a person is subpoenaed to give evidence in a court of law they have got no choice but to tell the truth, otherwise they risk perjuring themselves or get in trouble - contempt of court.
DON WISEMAN: In terms of this distinction they are making as to whether or not you are giving evidence for or against the government, what does the legislation now say?
MB: Well the legislation seems to give two categories of people who are giving evidence as a result of being subpoenaed. It seems to be saying that those that give evidence that will help the Republic will be given be given leave with pay, those that give evidence that I guess is against the Republic or give evidence that works against the Republic's interests or whatever will not be given pay. And I think they lose sight of the fact that when a person is being subpoenaed and they take an oath in court that they have to tell the truth. If it happens that the truth hurts the actions of government, hurts the actions of the heads of department, or hurts the actions of Cabinet or ministers, if that is the truth then that has to be supported. They can't get in trouble or they can't be discriminated against because they tell the truth, which just happens to hurt an individual in government.
DW: Now you yourself are involved in what is turning out to be a very long legal case, involving this anti -government protest nearly two years ago, and in part of that your lawyers had subpoenaed a number of government officials who had claimed they had immunity granted to them by the president. Do you think there is any link between what the government has done here and your court case?
MB: Well it certainly has - this who matter of issuing subpoenas for government officials to attend court to give evidence is very new in Nauru - it has never happened in the past, so it is very much front and square in the legal issues here in Nauru and the court proceedings that are happening. In the last court proceedings we have two witnesses that were subpoenaed. Those individuals work for the Nauru media and they were subpoenaed to give evidence in relation to directives given to them by the head of department, so those individuals had no choice and had to front up, give evidence and an honest account of what happened. And it is believed that as a result of that these changes to the law are now being made, because the testimony of those two witnesses from the Nauru media was deemed to be hurtful to individuals in the government.
DW: You are a former minister of justice. This government has staunchly defended itself, saying that it doesn't in any way interfere in the judiciary. Does it amount to judicial interference in your view?
MB: Yeah for sure. One of the things that we are dealing with as a pre-trial issue, is to have a stay on our trial because of our fear that we will not get a fair trial. And the grounds of that feeling is because we believe there is not enough separation or independence of the judiciary from the government. The government has always show an extraordinary interest in the case and as a result we believe they have interfered and intimidated judicial officers
to ensure they get an outcome that punishes us and favours them.
