Nauru appoints new judges, magistrate

THREE new judges have been appointed to Nauru’s Supreme Court, including two Australians, following a purge of the nation’s judiciary early this year.

THREE new judges have been appointed to Nauru’s Supreme Court, including two Australians, following a purge of the nation’s judiciary early this year.

Nauru’s Prime Minister, Baron Waqa, in January sacked and deported the country’s only magistrate, Peter Law, and shut sole judge Geoffrey Eames out of the country.

The Supreme Court will have three judges rather than one.

The Australians are Mohamed Shafi Khan — a former Queensland, Victorian, ACT and Fiji barrister — and Jane Elizabeth Hamilton-White — a former Queensland barrister and principal magistrate of the Solomon Islands. Mr Eames’s replacement as chief justice will be former Fijian vice-president Joni Madraiwiwi. He was a Fijian High Court judge between 1997 and 2000, and was a member of the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Mr Madraiwiwi was an outspoken social moderate in Fiji, ­advocating ethnic harmony and the right of homosexuals to have sex in private.

Mr Eames’s visa was cancelled in January in what he claims was an act of retaliation from the government over Mr Law’s decision to grant an injunction against the deportation of two expatriates.