Court rejects bid to expel Awatere

By HELEN TUNNAH

ACT has been told by the Court of Appeal it cannot use party-hopping laws to throw MP Donna Awatere Huata out of Parliament.

In a majority ruling delivered yesterday, the court said the intent of the Electoral Integrity Act was to deal with MPs who defected from their parties.

Mrs Awatere Huata had demonstrated she had not defected, and the breakdown in the relationship between her and the party need not have altered Act's strength in Parliament.

"Misconduct is not the same as defection," the court said.

Mrs Awatere Huata, an Act MP since 1996, was expelled from the party's caucus last year as the Serious Fraud Office laid charges against her and her husband.

The ruling means she can now stay in Parliament as an independent MP, and Act will be one MP down until the election.

Act leader Rodney Hide said yesterday that his party would take legal advice before deciding whether it would appeal against the ruling to the Supreme Court.

"It's very clear that Act was voted in with nine MPs. We now have eight, so we're an MP short.

"That was precisely the situation which the legislation was designed to address."

Mrs Awatere Huata said she was "very pleased".

"This is an important victory not just for me but for all MPs of all political parties as it concerns the right of a duly elected MP to keep his or her seat in the House in the face of steps taken by his or her party to have the seat declared vacant."

Act had tried to invoke the provisions of the controversial act to have Mrs Awatere Huata expelled from Parliament and replaced with a new MP from its party list.

An Audit Office report had found she had used her position as an MP in securing up to $2 million in Government funding for trusts she and family members were associated with.

She is facing 11 fraud charges relating to the use of $92,000 of the funds, and a charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

The case is expected back in court in October. Act says she misled the party over the trust funds, has damaged the party's reputation and has at times voted against it in Parliament.

The High Court this year said the party was free to use the party-hopping law to try to get Mrs Awatere Huata replaced by another Act MP. But the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that it had not been Mrs Awatere Huata who had distorted parliamentary proportions.

Instead, four of the five judges in two determinations, ruled it had been the party's own actions, in expelling Mrs Awatere Huata, which had reduced the party's representation in Parliament.

The court also ruled that disloyalty which caused a breakdown in trust between an MP and a party was not necessarily a defection.

A fifth judge, Justice William Young issued a dissenting ruling, saying he believed that if Mrs Awatere Huata's actions had led to an irreparable breakdown in the relationship, then she had altered the proportions of Parliament and Act could invoke the law to replace her.

The Electoral Integrity Act expires at next year's election.