The lawyer representing a group of Samoan Mormons in Australia says the Mormon church's claim that the Samoan language has not been banned from services in Brisbane is misinformed.
The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the Pacific, Elder James Hamula, has travelled to Apia to affirm the Samoan language has not been banned by the church.
Olinda Woodroffe, who is representing a group of Samoans from five Mormon wards in Brisbane, says the church does not allow its members to use anything other than English during worship.
She says a 2007 court decision proves that.
"Is he not aware of the decision of the Federal Magistrate Courts in Australia where no one of the Mormon church denied to the court that they stopped the people from continuing their worship in Samoan?"
Olinda Woodroffe says the judge found members' ability to worship in Samoan had been removed by the church, but doing so did not undermine their human rights.
She says they have lodged an appeal to this decision, based on an interpretation of the Australian Human Rights Act.
