Apisai Ielemia

Apisai Ielemia (19 August 1955 – 19 November 2018) was a Tuvaluan politician. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Tuvalu from 2006 to 2010, and also held the role as Foreign Minister. He was returned as a member of parliament in the 2010 Tuvaluan general election. He was re-elected to parliament in the 2015 Tuvaluan general election. On 5 October 2016 Chief Justice Sweeney of the High Court of Tuvalu declared that Ielemia’s parliamentary seat was vacant as he was not qualified to be a member of parliament, as the consequence of the short time the opposition MP served time in jail following his conviction on 6 May 2016 in the Magistrate’s Court of charges of abuse of office during the final year of his term as prime minister (August 2006 to September 2010). The abuse of office charges related to payments deposited into a National Bank of Tuvalu personal account. The 5 October 2016 decision of the Chief Justice was controversial as it appeared to contradict the June 2016 decision of Justice Norman Franzi of the High Court of Tuvalu that had quashed Ielemia’s conviction and acquitted him of the abuse of office charges. The appeal to the High Court held that the conviction was "manifestly unsafe," with the court quashing the 12-month jail term.

In an application for leave to appeal his ruling, Chief Justice Charles Sweeney found: "When The Hon. Apisai Ielemia commenced to serve his sentence on 6 May 2016, he became a person who was then disqualified from being elected as a member of Parliament". The judge specified that if Ielemia had, in the context of his appeal, sought "an order staying his sentence of imprisonment [before] he had commenced to serve it", then his seat would not have become vacant, as he would not have been imprisoned.