Criminal
Criminal Offences Act with the death penalty retained in law
Offences are set out in the Criminal Offences Act with procedure under the Criminal Offences (Procedure) provisions and the Magistrates' Courts Act. The death penalty remains on the statute book but is long unused.
Key rules
- Deadline — A person arrested must be brought before a magistrate promptly
- Deadline — Appeals from the Supreme Court to the Court of Appeal are generally within 42 days
Governing law
- Criminal Offences Act (Cap. 18) (s. 87)
- Magistrates' Courts ActCap. 11
- Bail Act 1990
- Police Act 2010
In practice
The Criminal Offences Act is a colonial-style code, amended over time, and it retains capital punishment for murder and treason. Tonga is therefore formally a retentionist state, but it is abolitionist in practice: no execution has been carried out for decades and sentences are commuted, so describing Tonga as having abolished the death penalty is wrong, while describing executions as a live risk is equally misleading. Trials in the Supreme Court may be by judge alone or with a jury in certain cases, which is unusual in the region where jury trial has largely disappeared.