A dramatic showdown has been playing out in Kiribati between the government and an Australian-born judge who was working in the country's High Court.
Justice David Lambourne was suspended from his position over alleged misconduct in May, and now the government is trying to deport him and have his visa cancelled.
As the husband of the country's opposition party leader, he says the government's actions are politically motivated.
The judge's career is in limbo as he awaits a decision from the Court of Appeal on whether he can stay in the country he has called home for 27 years.
His suspension, along with that of New Zealand-born Chief Justice William Hastings in June, has left Kiribati with no functioning high court.
The cases have drawn attention to the role of foreign judges in the Pacific — and there are a lot of them.
So why do so many Pacific nations use foreign judges in their highest courts?
And what issues are arising with their appointments?
A cohort of largely Australian and NZ men
Dr Anna Dziedzic from the University of Melbourne said the use of foreign judges in the region is more common than people think.
She is an expert on the judiciary in the region and has conducted research into the use of foreign judges in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
"If you did a headcount of the judges serving in nine states in 2019 — just in that one year — around three-quarters of the judges on the superior courts would be foreign judges," Dr Dziedzic told the ABC's Pacific Beat program.
Although the Pacific is not alone, it is rare for countries to rely on non-citizens to be appointed to the highest domestic courts and determine constitutional matters, she said.
The region's foreign judges are mainly from Australia and New Zealand, but also increasingly from Sri Lanka — and they are mostly men.
Dr Dziedzic found that out of 225 foreign judges in the nine countries she studied, only 16 were women.
"Only 7 per cent were women, and that clearly is not reflective of the community. It's a very much a gendered cohort of foreign judges there," she said.
"It is partly a consequence of historical discrimination in the countries where foreign judges are recruited from … that cohort is very male-dominated."
However, she has witnessed that among local judges, in some countries the proportion of women is becoming much higher.
Foreign judges an easy target
Dr Dziedzic said foreign judges could be vulnerable to deportation and are often only appointed on fixed contracts.
"As a foreign judge, you're not a citizen, so you don't have a right of entry and stay in the country," she said.
"You rely on immigration laws and visa permissions for the judge to actually enter the country and do his or her job as a judge. So this makes the judge vulnerable to removal."
Countries in the region will appoint citizen judges with permanent job security or until a specific age of retirement.
By placing foreign judges on fixed contracts, judicial independence can be compromised, Dr Dziedzic said.
This is what has been playing out in Kiribati.
The government has been attempting to strip Justice Lambourne of his tenure, claiming that he was appointed to the High Court in 2018 on a fixed three-year term contract, rather than for life.
He has also been accused of unspecified claims of misconduct.
The Australian Law Council, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Fiji Law Society are among the organisations that have strongly condemned the Kiribati government's actions.
Fiji Law Council president Wyle Clarke said the treatment of the foreign lawyers was deeply concerning.
"Not having any judges sitting on its high court is something that should be of grave concern," Mr Clarke told the ABC's Pacific Beat program.
"It's [the government] has effectively removed that institution from being able to function in that country."
Since Kiribati's attempt to deport Justice Lambourne on August 11 was halted by the Court of Appeal, the government has ramped up its rhetoric against the judge and those it says are working in his favour.
At an appeal hearing last Friday, a submission from lawyers representing the Attorney-General came with a threat from President Taneti Maamau.
It said he may suspend the Court of Appeal if it did not "self-correct".
Justice Lambourne's case is a familiar story.
In 2014, Nauru deported its only magistrate, Australian Peter Law, also alleging misconduct.
When the country's Australian chief justice Geoffrey Eames intervened by issuing an injunction against Mr Law's deportation, his visa was cancelled.
Both believed the actions were politically motivated and amounted to an abuse of the rule of law.
Why use foreign judges in the first place?
Using foreign judges in the Pacific started in colonial times when many countries adopted western laws.
Kiribati's former president Anote Tong said it was still common in the country of around 119,000 people because most residents wanted foreign judges in their courts to ensure impartiality.
"Kiribati is a small country and there is sometimes the feeling that if a Kiribati High Court judge was appointed then it's more likely than not that he would have some kind of relationship with the people involved," he said.
"There is that lack of confidence in the local judge by the people themselves. I think they want somebody so independent they should be appointed from overseas."
Dr Dziedzic said in addition to the impartiality argument, often there was a shortage of qualified citizens to take up judicial office.
"It's really a kind of gap-filling process, they need judges from outside in order to run the courts," she said.
It may also be the case that countries will appoint overseas judges to "enhance the reputation of Pacific courts", she added.
Tuvalu has never had a local judge in the superior courts and Kiribati has only had one since independence.
However, the situation has been changing in some Pacific countries with larger populations.
Mr Clarke said in countries like Fiji and Papua New Guinea, there was a mix of foreign and local judges, while Samoa has taken steps to ensure all district courts and the Supreme Court have local judges.
But at an appeal level, the judges are sourced from overseas to build in a level of accountability for those courts below, Mr Clarke said.
"The function of the foreign judges there is important because it gives an added level of review by independent judges."
While the use of judges from outside the region may still be necessary for some countries, Dr Dziedzic said there has been a growing number of Pacific Islander judges who are serving in different Pacific nations.
She said they share a certain knowledge of systems that Australian and New Zealand judges "might not have such a grasp on".
"Legal systems in the Pacific include indigenous customary law — they're plural legal systems that have both common law statute, but also indigenous customary law," she said.
"Dealing with that kind of legal pluralism is something that a Pacific Islander judge will grasp potentially more readily than a judge from a non-legal pluralistic system like Australia."
