November 30, 2007
By Michael Field
Fiji military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama, who overthrew a democratic government at the point of a gun, says lawyers and corrupt and nobody likes them.
Speaking today to the Attorney General’s conference in Sigatoka he warned them, using the language of his December 5 coup, to clean up their act.
People in their naivety people believed lawyers were honest.
“But what we often see is the deliberate obstruction of the law and the real issues, by the very people entrusted by society to uphold the law and justice – the lawyers,” he said in speech notes issued by the Information Ministry.
“Like it or not, society no longer trusts lawyers.”
Lawyers were closely linked to corrupt activities his military government was investigating.
“No large scale fraud or corruption can succeed without a group of obliging, amoral and ambitious lawyers, ready to launder money in overseas bank accounts, ready to evade taxes, ready to cook the books, ready to set up companies with dubious motives and ready to confuse the court system when their clients are eventually charged and tried,” he said.
“The investigations currently conducted into a number of suspicious activities in Fiji, throw up the names of a group of the same lawyers, over and over again.”
He said respectable law firms were engaged in “judge shopping” by bribing court staff to get their choice of judge.
“And these same lawyers and law firms are the most outspoken against the Interim Government supposedly in the protection of the rule of law.”
December 5 marks the first anniversary of the Commodore’s “clean up” coup in which he overthrew Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase.
Copyright: Michael Field
