Who decides who gets to ask the question?

Dear Editor, Tonga’s constitution guarantees the right to speak, write and print freely. But, when a prime minister can simply exclude a journalist from a press conference, who is actually protecting that right? I am asking this as a young Tongan citizen. I grew up being told that our constitution – one of the oldest in the Pacific – already gives us this freedom, that it was settled 150 years ago and doesn’t need to be fought for again. So when I read the news and watch on television that a journalist was turned away from government press conferences, again and again, by a guard who couldn’t even say what rule allowed it, something in that story didn’t sit right with me. Not because I expected Tonga to be perfect. Because I expected better than silence when someone finally asked why. On 4 September 2026, Tonga’s Supreme Court issued urgent interim orders against Prime Minister Lord Fakafanua, after ‘Etuate Lavulavu, chief executive of the Tonga Chronicle and 88.1FM, was repeatedly denied entry to government press conferences. When he asked the security guard what regulation justified turning him away, the guard couldn’t answer. He later learned the instruction came directly from the Prime Minister’s Office. Other reporting describes his outlet being blocked from filming while other outlets were allowed to. I don’t think this means our constitution has failed, exactly. Clause 7 still says what it has always said: that no law shall ever restrict our right to speak, write, and publish our opinions. Nobody stopped Lavulavu from writing what he thinks. What happened is narrower, and in some ways more worrying for someone my age watching this unfold – a government controlled who got into the room, on no visible legal basis, and it took a court order to fix it. Our constitution protects what we’re allowed to say. It never promised us the right to be let in the door to ask the question in the first place. It’s just being used now, in front of all of us. This matters to my generation specifically. We are the ones who will inherit whichever version of this becomes normal – either a country where access to power is written down, equal, and can’t quietly disappear depending on who’s in charge that week, or one where it depends on court cases that most people will never have the money or the standing to bring. I don’t want to grow up watching “ask a hard question and get locked out” become just how things work here. So this is what I’d ask for, plainly: published, written rules for who gets access to government press conferences and officials – rules that apply the same way to every outlet and can’t be overruled by a quiet phone call from someone’s office. Our government already says these briefings exist for transparency. Writing that down costs it nothing except the ability to pick and choose who gets to ask questions. Whether that happens is not really my question to answer alone. It’s a question for everyone in Tonga who’s watching this and wondering whether this and wondering whether the next generation will inherit a stronger version of this freedom, or a weaker one dressed up in the same old words. I’d rather ask that out loud now than stay quiet and find out later. Best regards, Malia So’afa (student), Hihifo