By Jane Lee
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has been urged by legal academics to help reunite an Australian lawyer with her husband, a member of the Nauruan opposition, whose passport has been confiscated by the island state's government.
Roland Kun was last year suspended from the Nauruan Parliament for giving interviews with foreign media that criticised the government. He was last month removed from a plane about to depart Nauru.
He had his passport confiscated without explanation, preventing him from reuniting with his wife, Katy Le Roy, and their three children in New Zealand.
Nauru MP Roland Kun with his wife Katy Le Roy and family.
Last year Dr Le Roy, works for New Zealand's civil service - had her Nauruan resident's visa revoked so she could not return to the country.
More than 80 Australian and New Zealand legal academics wrote to Ms Bishop's and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully's offices a fortnight ago. They released the letter on Tuesday night.
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie BishopCredit: Alex Ellinghausen
"We urge the respective governments to assist Mr Kun in being reunited with his family and to express sincere concern for the infringement of international human rights law and the deterioration of the rule of law in Nauru," they said.
The group includes academics from the Australian National University, Melbourne University, UNSW and the University of Queensland.
The human rights and constitutional law academics said Mr Kun was suspended from Parliament after he criticised the government's removal of judicial officers.
The government deported its former chief magistrate and refused to allow its chief justice - both Australian nationals - to return, leaving the country without a Supreme Court for more than six months.
Nauru's cancellation of Mr Kun's passport amounted to a "severe attack on his freedom of movement" and his forced separation from Dr Le Roy and their children arbitrarily interfered with his family life, the academics said. This was in breach of the island nation's obligations under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is also signatory. Such rights were also enshrined in Nauru's constitution, they said.
A number of opposition MPs were arrested last month following a local protest over corruption claims which turned violent, with two, including Nauru's former president Sprent Dabwido, refused bail.
Ms Bishop said earlier this month at a meeting of Pacific foreign ministers in Sydney that Nauruan President Baron Waqa had assured her that the country was adhering to the rule of law, and that opposition members who had been detained or charged would be dealt with fairly.
Ms Bishop said they would remain in talks on the issue.
Asked whether Australia could intervene, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that the government was aware of the concerns raised in the letter.
She said that Ms Bishop had spoken with President Waqa several times "to raise her concerns" about developments in Nauru. Mr McCully and secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Dame Meg Taylor had raised similar concerns.
"We will continue to monitor developments closely."
Nauru's government has insisted it is upholding the law, and previously accused "left-wing hypocrites" of unfair criticism and of using the nation as a punching bag.
It has said the several hundred-strong protest last month amounted to a riot, with the Parliament building vandalised and almost a dozen police injured.
With Daniel Flitton