Rainbow judiciary spells cultural plurality

Fiji’s judicial system will not only become multi-cultural but also multi-lingual, with the recruitment of judges from Asian countries.

Chief Justice Anthony Gates was in Sri Lanka last fortnight to interview candidates to fill at least ten vacancies, five each in the High Courts and Magistrates’ Courts.

A Colombo Times report said that Sri Lanka’s Deputy Solicitor General Yasantha Kodagoda assisted Justice Gates in the selection process.

“This is the first time a group of Sri Lankan judges was being selected to serve in Fijian courts. Fiji’s (then) President Josefa Iloilo has reappointed Justice Gates (who holds British and Australian citizenship), as the country’s chief justice and named three judges recently, just weeks after scrapping the constitution and sacking the judiciary,” the publication said.

Fiji Television reported on August 17 that five judges were to join immediately, earlier confirmed to Indian Newslink by Attorney General and Justice Minister Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum.

The government reconstituted the Judicial Service Commission that paved the way for appointment of judges, many of who were in their posts prior to the dismantlement.

But the move has not gone without controversy.

The new Commission, ordered through a State Services decree, does not provide representation for the Fiji Law Society.

The Fiji media quoted Society president Dorsami Naidu as saying that the move will grant unlimited power to the government.

“The Society’s absence (from the Commission) will facilitate the government to select judges at its own will,” he said.

But Mr Khayum did not agree.

He said the Commission is far more representative than ever before and that the court system and appointment of judges ‘remained exactly the same.’

“The legal profession can expect to lift its standards of professionalism and reassure the public of high levels of practice. Lawyers will be required to obtain and renew their Certificates of Practice on an annual basis,” he said.

Mr Khayum asked adversaries and critics to provide “at least one evidence of any act of impropriety by the government in relation to the appointment of judges over the past two years.

“If any, the judicial system is far more independent than it was before December 5, 2006,” he said.

Mr Khayum said the Commission had been expanded to include the Chief Justice, Pusine Judges and judges of the High Court and Court of Appeal

Mr Gates underscored the independence of the judiciary in a speech that he delivered after he took oath of office as the chief justice.

“Academic commentators may expatiate on the indelicacies of our situation, the constitutional dislocation itself, the present impossibility of constitutional compliance over appointments and many other niceties.

“They must do the right thing. Few if any judges throughout the world will ever have to face the dilemmas we shall face; to be intellectually honest and yet to be efficacious,” he said.

Stating that “a few lawyers were determined to bring discredit to the judiciary,” he said it it was part of a plan to stall the justice system.

“Some judges were placed on travel bans by Australia, New Zealand or the US.

“Such steps were a shameful interference with Fiji’s judiciary and with its independence, which would not have been tolerated if such had been imposed upon their own judiciaries,” he said.

A Wellington based legal luminary, who wished to remain anonymous, said that there was nothing wrong with the judicial system in Fiji.

“That country has always been dispensing justice based on jurisprudence. There is nothing wrong with the system,” he said.