Michael Dishington Scott was

Chief Justice of Tonga Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

. Scott is a British national with a long career in the Pacific. He has previously served as a judge in

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

and the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

, and served for 14 years as a judge on the

High Court of Fiji The High Court of Fiji is one of three courts that was established by Chapter 9 of the 1997 Constitution of Fiji — the others being the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The Constitution empowered Parliament to create other courts; these w ...

. As a High Court judge in Fiji, in ''Yabaki v President of the Republic of the Fiji Islands'', he ruled that the interim government established in the wake of the

2000 Fijian coup d'état The Fiji coup d'état of 2000 was a civilian coup d'état by hardline i-Taukei (ethnic Fijian) nationalists against the elected government of an Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry on 19 May 2000. This was followed by an attempt on ...

was legal. This ruling was later overturned on appeal. From 2004 to 2007 he was a judge of the Fijian Court of Appeal. He was appointed

in August 2010, replacing Tony Ford. He assumed the role on 27 September 2010. He was replaced by

Owen Paulsen Owen Paulsen is a New Zealand jurist, who served as Chief Justice of Tonga from 2015 to 2019. Since August 2019 he has been an associate justice of the High Court of New Zealand. Paulsen was educated at Shirley Boys' High School and the Univers ...

in January 2015. In June 2017 he was appointed to the Judicial Committee of the

Privy Council of Tonga The Privy Council of Tonga is the highest ranking council to advise the Monarch in the Kingdom of Tonga. It is empowered to advise the King in his capacity as Head of State and Fountain of Justice under the provisions of Clause 50 ( 1 ) of the Cons ...

as a Law Lord.

References

Living people British judges on the courts of Kiribati British judges on the courts of Fiji British judges on the courts of the Solomon Islands British judges on the courts of Tonga Chief justices of Tonga Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Tonga members Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-law-bio-stub