Most Indians wouldn’t have heard of Vanuatu. That applies to a Supreme Court judge, too. Not a matter of concern, though advisable for them to get copies of the Manorama Yearbook; it names its president and PM.
While hearing a Vanuatu man’s appeal over a bail order, Justice Sandeep Mehta exclaimed: “There is no country like that…. This country is like Kailasa,” referring to the fictitious island-republic where fake godman Nithyananda has fled with his bhakts and wealth.
No surprise in India where a high court judge, M.C. Sharma (now retired, thank God!) of Rajasthan, said peacocks don’t procreate through sex; instead peahens get pregnant by drinking the tears shed by peacocks. Considering that this entire act ought to be performed without glycerin which peacocks have no access to, the fowls would need several moments of melancholy before procreation begins. Lucky we, who procreate in pleasure, not pathos.
Let’s veer back to Vanuatu. The judge was unaware of the real Vanuatu, a Commonwealth country (earlier New Hebrides) that got freedom in 1980 from an Anglo-French joint rule, and is a UN member. The hon’ble judge was also unaware that a brother judge had only a year ago delivered a milestone constitutional judgment about governor’s powers in which an order of the Vanuatu supreme court was touched on. As a common law country, Vanuatu’s SC judgments have as much precedent value in Indian constitutional courts as do the judgments of the English, Australian, Canadian or US apex courts.
Justice Pardiwala had quoted Australian constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey’s contention that “where a constitution is prescriptive, and a constitutional breach is involved, a court is more likely to hold the breach to be a justiciable issue, even if it relates to the grant of assent to a bill”. She had referred to the opinion of Millhouse, J. in Constitutional Reference No 1 of 2008 reported in [2009] 1 LRC 453, which held that “where a country has a written constitution, the courts always have the jurisdiction to remedy breaches of the constitution. The said decision was also accepted by the Court of Appeal of Vanuatu in Republic of Vanuatu v Carcasses… which held that while a court will not otherwise inquire into or adjudicate upon issues arising in Parliament, it would be empowered to interpret and determine whether there has been a breach of a constitutional right”.
Carcasses, by the way, doesn’t refer to any cadaver material, but to Vanuatu’s former prime minister Moana Carcasses who, in a one-year stint from March 2013, indulged in several acts of corruption, but also aided the advancement of constitutional law by triggering many a legal battle over the legitimacy of his government and parliamentary actions. The land’s apex court had to adjudicate them for the benefit of the rule of law in Vanuatu, which also would help further the cause of judicial scrutiny in common law countries like India.
Otherwise, Vanuatu was in the news for all the wrong reasons last year. IPL fugitive Lalit Modi paid a crore or more to get a golden citizenship in the tax haven isle only to be revoked a month later by their current law-abiding PM with whom India has a healthy bond. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his delegates during a 2023 visit to neighbouring Papua New Guinea, and offered them and other isle states sea ambulances, dialysis units, generic drugs, and cyber training to their techies. Later, in January 2025, he sent Vanuatu a relief cheque of $500,000 when the isles were hit by a deadly earthquake.
How sad! Fugitives from law know Vanuatu; not one of our lords of law!