PORT VILA – Vanuatu’s Supreme Court has followed through with invoking the leadership code of its constitution and banned all 15 MPs convicted of bribery from public office.

The decision came on the same day a snap election was called for January 22, after the decimated ranks of the ruling party of prime minister Sato Kilman was unable to negotiate a government of national unity with the opposition.

Parliament was dissolved last month in a bid by president Baldwin Lonsdale to resolve the political impasse.

On October 21, Vanuatu’s deputy prime minister Moana Carcasses was sentenced to four years in jail for bribery and corruption, joining 13 other MPs – on half of the nation’s government – in being sentenced to three or more years in jail.

As one of two former prime ministers jailed in the scandal, Carcasses was found to have made cash payments amounting to 35 million vatu ($452,000) to his fellow parliamentarians last year while in opposition which were ruled by the court as designed to influence MPs in their capacity as public officials.

According to the leadership code of Vanuatu’s constitution, a public official may not take office if they have been charged with an offence and receives a sentence of two years or longer.

Vanuatu’s Supreme Court today barred the 15 MPs from office for 10 years.

Finance minister Willie Jimmy, the only MP to plead guilty to the corruption charges and given a suspended sentence, was also banned from office, even though he had not been dealt the minimum two-year sentence stipulated by the leadership code.

In upholding the convictions the Vanuatu court also granted the prosecution’s request that parliamentary entitlements paid to the jailed politicians cease.

However RNZI Vanuatu correspondent Hilaire Bule reports that the gratuity payments, which are made to MPs at the end of a parliamentary term, have already been paid to all 52 members of the outgoing parliament, including the 15 convicted former MPs.

Each of the former politicians got US$36,000 dollars.

All 52 MPs received a gratuity of 4,452,023 vatu paid directly into their bank accounts in Port Vila. A source told the Vanuatu Daily Post the gratuity payments are the normal payments MPs receive at the end of their four year term in parliament.

Bule says last Friday the jailed politicians were seen being transported to Port Vila banks in prison buses after receiving their cheques.

Meanwhile, President Lonsdale is to appear in court again on Thursday over an opposition filed appeal of his decision to dissolve the country’s parliament.

Dan McGarry from the Vanuatu Daily Post told the ABC that even when considering the recent goings on in Vanuatu politics, the president’s court appearance is “a little bit perverse”.

“The principle electoral officer came in to speak with us and basically said ‘the only way we can get a budget for this election is by parliament actually meeting, but parliament’s been dissolved and that’s why we’re having this election’,” he said.

The parliament has only sat once this year and has been unable to stage a second sitting to pass the national budget.

In another report, the Daily Post says nine out of the 14 jailed former MPs have been transferred from Vanuatu’s medium risk prison building to a female prison unit in Port Vila on medical grounds.

The two female detainees previously accommodated at the women’s facility were relocated.

In handing down their sentences on October 22, Supreme Court Judge Justice Mary Sey noted that six former MPs – Paul Telukluk, Serge Vohor, Anthony Wright, Jonas James, Steven Kalsakau and Silas Yatan had medical ailments.

- PNC sources