Pacific / Nauru

Another Nauru MP slams fact-finding mission

07:17 am on 17 December 2015

The Commonwealth Secretariat's fact-finding mission to Nauru has been slammed as offensive by another opposition MP.

Mathew Batsiua is a former Minister of Justice and says he is ashamed that the Government continues to abuse the rule of law.

He is one of four MPs charged for his role in a protest outside parliament in June.

Mr Batsiua says it's offensive that the two observers who recently visited the island never sought out the charged MPs.

"It was supposed to be a fact-finding mission on the claims that there are breaches of the rule of law in Nauru, and you would think that the common sense thing to do would be go straight to the source who are making those claims. But they didn't bother to include us in the programme. Maybe they were discouraged by the government not to meet with us, I'm not sure."

Mathew Batsiua says there's solid evidence of the breakdown of the rule of law, starting with the deportation of a magistrate and the cancellation of the previous chief justice's visa.