June 23, 2008
By Michael Field
Fiji's military appointed Ombudsman Shaista Shameem has written a report on the "circumstances and facts" involving the deportation of Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah and Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter.
As this analysis is being written her report has still not been published.
The version I've obtained has gone out to the parties and may yet be modified. This review is based in part on the hope that she might see the
error of her ways.
It runs to 41 pages. It does not have any footnotes or appendices so, for the most part, one is obliged to guess at where she got her material. Much of it, however, is obtained from illegally intercepted emails. No evidence of interception warrants is provided so, while Shameem is also the chairman of the Fiji Human Rights Commission, it is clear she has no respect for the law.
Page 1 of her report.
This notes the complaint by Leader of the Opposition Mick Beddoes, seeking an investigation into the two men's deportation.
Page 2
She says that as Ombudsman she is not authorised to investigate. But she goes on to say she has the second hat, her constitutional authority with FHRC.
Page 3
She is keen to investigate, speaking of herself in the third person: "instead it decided to inquire generally into this matter of its own initiative given the public and international interest in the removals of both Hunter and Hannah."
Page 4
Section 30 of the Constitution is quoted, the one on freedom of speech and expression.
Page 5
Now it gets interesting.
"The Commission undertook preliminary investigations by interviewing the relevant Interim Government Ministers as well as other State agencies on the circumstances and facts surrounding the removal of Mr Hannah and Mr Hunter. These investigations elicited documents and correspondence relevant to the issue."
She does not name the ministers or departments she spoke to, and as the report moves on, she does not even bother to say what the documents and correspondence is. Her report contains no lists contrast that with the even more weird report her commission produced on Fiji media. Even I was quoted in that one albeit incorrectly.
Page 6
She relates the "material facts" noting the deportation of Hunter on February 26 and Hannah on May 2. No reference is made to the fact that Air Pacific refused to fly Hannah and that he was instead forced onto Korean Airlines. Nor is there any mention of the High Court injunction issued preventing his deportation, which the military ignored.
Thus Shameem's version of "material facts", even at this early stage, is at complete odds with what happened.
Then she goes on again: "Documentary evidence relating to the removals of Hunter and Hannah was then provided to the Commission. The Commission subsequently undertook follow-up investigations with other state agencies and was provided with additional evidence. The Commission also obtained secondary evidence through its own sources."
So what is this secondary evidence; we are never told. It is clear however it is gossip and hearsay. It is also illegally gained material. Shameem broke Fiji law.
Page 7
At 3.4.2 she provides the closest she comes to any kind of list.
³"Documents were provided to the Commission by the Interim Prime Minister, the Interim Minister of Defence, National Security and Immigration, and the Interim Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. Additional evidence was provided by other sources."
In other words; stolen emails.
Happily she proves it immediately by beginning to quote from the email correspondence between Russell Hunter in Suva and Victor Lal in London in February. As if to prove she has the emails, she provides the email addresses.
The method by which she obtained the emails is not given.
Now it is known that even at the time the emails were written they came into the public domain by other means. They were, however, unquestionably stolen. Shameem is a receiver of stolen property.
Victor Lal's email makes an interesting reference to splits between the judges, with Jitoko and Jiten refusing to share tea with Gates, Nazhat Shameem and Byrne. One could have expected, at this point, that Shameem would disclose a conflict of interest; she is defending her sister. Except only insiders would know that.
What Victor Lal says apparently takes on sinister meaning to Shameem. But Hunter's emails show it is not at all. He says "We werenıt planning a revolution against the judiciary."
Page 8
Some more emails about the Fiji Sun. Shameem is irritated that although Hunter has been deported, he still runs the newspaper. Some background on Hunter is given over how he had been with the Fiji Times and had been told to leave in 1999 but was still there.
A new email thread is begun, between one John Cameron and a partner of law firm Munro Leys, Florence Fenton.
Page 9.
At this point Hunter and Hannah more or less disappear from the report; Shameem is on her Holy Crusade to who knows where.
The couple's email makes a joke about Justice Jocelynne Scutt, a minor Australian figure on the Fiji court. A "scut" it seems, is a short erect tail, drawing the comment from Cameron: "and a sure indicator of the proximity of arse-holes".
The message is forwarded onto lawyer Graham Leung and to one Wame Baravilala who, zealous Shameem tells us, is Fenton's spouse. He trashed it.
In ways that Shameem does not tell her readers, this Scut email also reached the eyes of Attorney-General Aiyaz Saiyed-Khaiyum. And he ran over and gave it to Scutt herself. It was accompanied by names of people who had received it (how did she know that unless she was snooping?)
Unbelieveably Scutt was so offended she wrote to the United Nations secretary general to complain. It is hard to credit but perhaps understandable given the small puddle they occupy that this woman would think her daily troubles, with a bout of name calling, would interest the UN Secretary General. World poverty, Dafur, food shortages, global warming, oh, and a blubbering judge in, where, Fiji? Right.
Page 10
The reason why poor busy Mr Ban Ki-moon has been bothered by the whinging Australian is revealed; turns out Baravilala (who only received it the Scut email - did not forward it) had a United Nations Population Fund email address.
Scutt and side-kick Shameem thought they had rumbled on a great international crime.
But wait. The UN put the plight of millions on hold for a nanosecond to reply to the petulant judge; it basically told her to get lost.
A UN official wrote to Scutt (and quoted breathlessly scandalised by Shameem) and said that "the staff member has pointed out that he was merely copied on the email message; he had not requested to be copied. Furthermore, the staff member let us know that he 'did not find the content amusing' and, therefore, had deleted the message and had not forwarded it to any third party."
Shameem was scandalised by the UN reply: "The UNFPA response to Justice Scutt's complaint would not have alleviated her distress. There appeared to be not alternative remedy that Justice Scutt could have pursued in relation to the objectionable email."
She could have wiped her eyes and hardened up, perhaps.
Page 11
Shameem takes aim at Leung saying he "was the recipient of a number of relevant emails during February and March 2008."
All right, why bother repeating; but, for the record, how would she know? Unless she was reading his email, of course.
Leung got an email from a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Murray Kellam. Shameem looked him up on Wikipedia (and why is an apparently educated lawyer using Wikipedia?) and found he was holder of the Order of Australia.
Kellam told Leung (in a private email exchange) that an article he was
planning to write about the judiciary in Fiji was "pretty punchy but not
defamatory...."
Page 12
Leung also sends an email to Emelita Wilson who is married to Matt Wilson, a
public relations man in Suva. In the private email he tells Matt that he wants his planned article strengthened so he could try to get it into the
Fiji Times.
In case you do not get it, sledge hammer Shameem tells her readers that this is evidence that Leung was writing an article for the Fiji Times.
Hannah comes back into the report for a moment.
Shameem links those emails Saiyed-Khaiyum "inviting" Hannah into his office for a discussion.
She says: "What the article said and whether it was actually published has not been verified. "
Perhaps Wikipedia didn't tell her.
So we get told all kind of trivial detail but when it comes to materially important parts, linked to the complain, Shameem hasn't got a clue?
Page 13
Enter Ange Heffernan of the Pacific Centre for Public Integrity and, it seems, a client of John Cameron.
Remember to follow this carefully, for there is plotting afoot here.
Cameron wrote the Scut Joke.
Heffernan emails Leung to find out what bar Judge John Byrne belong to. She says: "I've just had enough of these creeps!"
She sent a similar letter, but this time about Scutt, to lawyer Laurel Vaurasi.
Page 14
Heffernan's letter of complaint to the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner in Melbourne.
It was public at the times, so chances are Shameem did not need military help to obtain it.
Page 15
Shameem: "The Heffernan letter, parts of which are quoted above, is somewhat long-winded, repetitive and ungrammatical..."
Pots calling kettles names, and cavewomen throwing glasses comes to mind.
She says Heffernan was complaining about things on one hand and on the other, had joined the military's body to set up a charter.
"This type of political legerdemain and machination ... is clearly unacceptable...."
So is removing a government at the point of a gun.
Shemeem hits pay dirt now.
"On March 12th the web was spun wider still, implicating the New Zealand Government."
New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy secretary Michael Green, she says, emailed Leung "discussing the main legal issues in the Qarase constitutional case and giving legal opinions on an important element of the case."
Breathlessly Shameem reveals Green is still with the ministry (perhaps she checked with Wikipedia again) despite (why despite?) being declared persona non grata in Fiji. Since when did Fiji's fatwas cut any ice in Wellington?
This was evidence, she says, that he was still interfering in Fiji affairs.
She notes that at this point the lawyers complained publicly their emails were being hacked. Shameem does not deny this to be so. Indeed, she does the opposite.
Page 16
She justifies it.
"Unsavoury email correspondence about the judiciary and individual judges involve lawyers, UN agencies and an NGO, and attacks on the judiciary through formal letters and derogatory media statements and articles, were taking place during the Qarase case.... New Zealand Government's Green by email also directly offered a legal opinion in support of the application in the Laisenia Qarase case."
So, you were reading private emails. But that's okay, ends justify means, right? And what are the ends?
She says the conspiracy continued. Bring back John Cameron. He wrote an article in the Fiji Times questioning the right of judges to sit in Fiji.
Intones Shameem: "Cameron's Fiji Times article carried a number of serious errors of law."
She does not say what they are.
"Cameron had come full circle, from expressing personal vituperative remarks
against a fellow Australian, and a female colleague, in February, to
publicly laying down a formal blueprint, somewhat resembling a "final
solution" for dealing with the judiciary, by the end of April."
Wonder who it was that was the first person to ever file an affidavit in evidence against a fellow judge? Ah, I remember now. Nazhat Shemeem.
Copyright: Michael Field
