Kiribati suspends three more NZ judges

Kiribati has suspended a further three New Zealand judges for an alleged ‘‘judicial coup’’, comparing them to claimed ‘‘Nazi’’ judges.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has expressed ‘‘deep concern’’ over the suspensions, the latest salvo in the Kiribati Government’s battle against its judiciary.

The Kiribati Government in July suspended Judge Bill Hastings, a New Zealand judge appointed as chief judge of Kiribati’s High Court. The suspension happened after Hastings ruled in favour of another High Court judge, David Lambourne, whom the government refused to allow back into the country and then tried to deport.

Three retired New Zealand judges working for Kiribati’s Court of Appeal – Peter Blanchard, Rodney Hansen, QC, and Paul Heath – then ruled in favour of Lambourne in July after the government challenged Hastings’ ruling.

The Kiribati Government this week suspended the three appeal judges, leaving the country’s high and appeals courts without working judges.

The office of President Taneti Maamau did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a Facebook post last week, the office described the appeal judges’ ruling as ‘‘breathtaking, as is its circularity of logic, and misstatements [sic] of facts and law’’.

‘‘The government will continue to honour the ‘rule of law’ . . . and defend judicial independence,’’ the statement read.

It claimed the suspended judges were trying to ‘‘convert’’ Kiribati into ‘‘judicial tyranny, as Nuremberg judges did by aiding and abetting Nazi Germany’’.

The meaning of this statement was unclear; the judges of the Nuremberg Trials, held after World War II, sentenced 12 senior Nazi figures to death.

A Ministry Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said the ministry had been made aware of the suspension on Monday. ‘‘Aotearoa New Zealand expresses deep concern at the suspension of three New Zealand judges from the Kiribati Court of Appeal yesterday,’’ the spokesperson said.

In their ruling, the appeal judges said Hastings had been right to determine that Lambourne’s 2018 appointment as a judge was not time-limited. The government had in 2021 required Australianborn Lambourne to sign a threeyear contract in order to re-enter the country.

Lambourne, the husband of Kiribati’s opposition leader, Tessie Lambourne, has been a resident of Kiribati since 1995.