Wednesday, 21 July 2010
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More Judicial Officers Dismissed in Fiji
Sarah McDowall
20 July 2010
IHS Global Insight Daily Analysis
WDAN
English
Copyright 2010, IHS Global Insight Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Five magistrates in Fiji have been sacked without notice after they rejected prosecutions by the interim regime. The magistrates join 40 other judicial officers dismissed over the past 15 months in Fiji, including 30 magistrates and 15 High Court judges.
The New Zealand Law Society has condemned the dismissals and expressed serious concern over their wider implications for the independence of the country's judiciary. President of the Law Society, Jonathon Temm, said the group had been notified of the dismissals, which included one magistrate who had questioned the rationale behind a prosecution by the government-run Independent Commission Against Corruption against a Fijian human rights lawyer and her husband.
Temm's comments come after concerns were reportedly raised at the UN Human Rights Council about the credibility of the Pacific Island's judiciary.
Significance: There has been a major erosion of Fiji's judicial system since the country was plunged into a political crisis in April 2009, when former President Ratu Josefa Iloilo abrogated the 1997 constitution and dismissed the judiciary following a Court of Appeal ruling that the previous interim government was illegal (see Fiji: 17 April 2009: ).
Although the majority of those dismissed have since been replaced by judicial officials from Sri Lanka, the integrity and independence of the body has been seriously compromised. Under the current state of emergency, where the rule of law has been severely weakened, there is a high degree of legal confusion and volatility—although government interference has generally not extended into the foreign investment sphere.
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