Transcript
OLIVER SAKSAK: Because we're under-resourced and we'd like to see that happen, that the chair of the parole board can be a fulltime position, so we can concentrate on applications as they come, and we don't have to sit in a month or two. We can sit as and when required, so that... often that's why people in detention who could have been released last month have to wait another month to be considered. So it doesn't have to happen that way, if we were adequately resourced.
JOHNNY BLADES: With the former MPs who were convicted of bribery, and then the conspiracy case, how did the parole board encounter that, was that a difficult one? There must have been some political pressure brought to bear.
OS: Yes that was a very interesting one. We dealt with them as everybody else, no differently. They had to be qualified, they had to apply in the usual way, having served half of their sentence, and we considered them on that basis of their report, as to how they behaved at the correctional centre, and we treated them equally, the same as everybody else. And yes we decided to release them on parole, we didn't see any impediment. They served their half term and we released them. And there was nothing that we received as a complaint from anybody.
JB: You deemed that they had accepted their crime, that they'd been accountable and shown remorse?
OS: Yes, they expressed very deep remorse when they come in and we interviewed them/ yes they were very emotional and they undertook to perform further reconciliation ceremonies to the public at large, over the radio - national radio - doing a public apology, and then followed at the Chiefs Nakamal doing the realistic part of the ceremony by exchanging goods, mats, kava, money and the rest.
JB: Do you think corruption in Vanuatu amongst office holders will be reduced because of that sort of precedent?
OS: Very much. There's now a lot of change, as I can see in a later case that involved the deputy prime minister that has come on. And he's been removed from his seat from parliament...
JB: Natuman?
OS: Yes, Natuman.
JB: That wasn't a corruption case, was it? That was a...
OS: That was the conspiracy case. And yes people are learning a great deal out of it, and they're taking extra precaution and care.
