A judicial debacle in Nauru

No quick solution seems in sight for the cases of over 150 asylum seekers facing charges over the July 2013 riots, following the deportation of Nauru’s only resident magistrate and court registrar, Peter Law, over the weekend. The deportation was quickly followed by the cancellation by Nauruan authorities of the chief justice’s visa while he was in Australia, throwing the judiciary into utter disarray. Chief justice Geoffrey Eames had tried to intervene into president Baron Waqa’s decision. Both Mr Eames and Mr Law are Australians. No reasons have been cited, but magistrate Law himself says his expulsion is linked to a case he was handling, involving two residents recently declared to be ‘prohibited immigrants’ by the justice minister. Law claims the developments have thrown the government’s New Zealand-funded legal reform out the window. A Nauruan opposition MP, Mathew Batsiua, likened the action to that of a dictator.