A law professor in Auckland says the Nauru government's handling of complaints about its magistrate seems an outrageous departure from best practice.
The government says it dismissed Peter Law because it lost confidence in him, and that it received complaints against him including about misconduct.
But Mr Law says those allegations were never put to him and do not have any substance.
Bill Hodge, of Auckland University, says the Nauru government does not seem to have followed standard complaint procedures.
"They are only complaints and we have no idea whether there is any truth at all. Most jurisdictions have some sort of a complaint mechanism which provides for an independent person to have a look and as far as we can tell the department of justice over there is saying 'we've got a complaint, end of story, he's gone'."
Bill Hodge says he does not know of a similar case in any other Pacific country, including Tonga, Samoa and Fiji.
