Vanuatu Government said the state may face some legal action if it release part of the final report from the Commission of Inquiry (COI) related to the citizenship issue.

According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, there is a second portion or part of the COI report inside the citizenship issue based on investigations specifically inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Government claims this part exceeds the mandate and terms of reference of the COI.

This means the government said it will not release that part of the report because it does not follow the correct legal procedure of the COI.

The statement drew the attention of the Opposition who commented on it. The Opposition Leader, Hon. Ishmael Kalsakau, said one of the scopes of the COI is to give commissioners the authority to use any means to find irregularities inside the issuance of passports. Therefore, this contradicts the government’s statement about limitations of the COI on the citizenship issue.

“A scope of the Commission of Inquiry is to undertake it under any irregular grant of the citizenship and the issue of passport of anyone and to recommend any actions to anyone responsible and with a scope like this it will be difficult to believe that the office of the Prime Minister will come out and say that the enquiry will exhibit its work so this scope has no limit and will locate anything that is wrong in the grant of the citizenship go find any irregular contact of the part issue of the passport then recommend what is wrong with the issue.”

However, the Government said the commission admitted there are some internal conflicts and possible political motivations in their work.

This means the Government is considering whether to appoint a new COI to look into this matter in a proper legal way.

However, the Opposition said the involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office in this matter caused the investigation to lose impartiality or fairness.

“The fact that there is a response from the office of the prime minister shows that this issue has lost its partiality of it, The Ministry Of Justice is responsible of the COI, and they report to the Minister and under the provisions of the law the Minister is to gazette it.”

Given the fact that any complete Commission of Inquiry report must pass through the Council of Ministers before it can be gazetted and made available to the public,

In this case, the final report of the COI inside the citizenship issue has not yet reached the Council of Ministers, but the Government came out early to say it will not release it, raising big concerns from the Opposition and public about whether the report targets anyone in the Government which has led the Government to say it will not release the report.

“Minister of the Prime Minister has to come out with it and they need to state that whether this report is to implicate one of the members of the government of today, because if it is to implicate anyone that is in the government and those trying to end it then it will mark a clear conflict of interest by which even criminal investigations exist.”

According to the Government, urgent advice from the Attorney General of the Republic concerning the matter confirmed that the commission acted outside the scope and mandate given to it, and said if the Government acts based on that part of the report, which it labels ‘Ultra vires’ (meaning outside the boundary of the investigation), then the State may face serious and costly legal actions.

In response to this advice, the Opposition Leader said he did not see where the Republic of Vanuatu would be charged any cost.

“I don’t know where exactly they will come with all respect to the Attorney General and I don’t know where the citizens of the republic of Vanuatu because a recommendation from the citizens is the proceedings must take place into the next stage and it will be a different problem, if it resides in the bridges of law then it must go to the police to investigate to prosecute the people involved, I don’t see any place where they say that it will cost the republic of Vanuatu money.”

VBTC News contacted the Chairman of the Commission, Mr. Peter Bong, who said he could not comment on the Government ministry’s statement because the COI report should first receive collective feedback from the full Council of Ministers.