AG Moti withdraws no-confidence motion court case amidst disqualification of Haomae's motion

By the Attorney General's Office, Honiara

Solomon Islands Attorney General Julian Moti QC today informed Parliament that “in the light of the Speaker’s very carefully reasoned and impeccably stated ruling” on Honourable Haomae’s latest no confidence motion, he was “instructed to withdraw and discontinue the Prime Minister’s pending actions in the High Court.”

The Attorney General confirmed, however, that contrary to the statement of Honourable Haomae’s lawyers in yesterday’s Solomon Star, there was in fact no case listed for hearing before the High Court this Friday.

“Honourable Haomae’s lawyers filed their papers in the High Court just before lunch yesterday and did not serve them on my Chambers until the afternoon. According to the Notice of Motion, Justice Brown was prepared to hear their application at 9.30am next Monday, not this Friday.”

Attorney General Moti QC said: “Now that the questions have been conclusively settled by the Speaker in accordance with what we believed was established long ago in Danny Philip v. Speaker, we need not trouble the High Court with the further agitation of that matter. The High Court’s decision in Danny Philip’s case is final and binding until it is revisited and disturbed by the Court of Appeal. A consistent application of the doctrine of judicial precedent would have produced the same result which the Speaker pronounced today.”

“The Government’s proposal to enact laws prescribing the privileges, immunities and powers of Members of Parliament is a more constructive way of addressing those perennial problems which needlessly travel to Courts for their resolution. Courts must be places of last resort for solution of problems which the Legislature is better equipped to answer by the exercise of its long-dormant powers.”