Chief Justice Michael Kruse has told the Acting Director of the Budget Office that it’s the Fono, not the Budget Office, that determines the Judiciary’s budget allocation.
In the budget call for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget for ASG, the budget office had set ceilings for the Fono, Judiciary and all departments and agencies.
In a May 19 letter to Acting Budget Director Satia Aokuso Satia, the CJ said he had received the budget call memo instructing the Judicial branch to comply with the stipulated FY2016 ceiling figure of $3,292,00.
“Please be advised that the Judiciary’s budget is, as it has always been in the past, dictated by its capacity needs to function,” wrote the Chief Justice. “It is then left up to the Fono to determine the Judiciary’s allocation, not the Budget Office.”
Kruse spelled out that the “High Court, like the Fono, is not a government department amenable to executive influence, just as the Judiciary has no influence whatsoever on the Executive Branch’s perennial history of fiscal shortcomings.” He told Satia, “So please be […] advised that if you change or ‘final’ my numbers for Fono review, you do so at your own peril.”
The Chief Justice s letter was copied to Governor Pulaalii Nikolao Pula, Senate President Tuaolo Manaia Fruean and House Speaker Savali Talavou Ale.
