Speeches - Fiji Government Online (www.fiji.gov.fj)
PM Bainimarama - Address at the 9th Attorney General's Conference 2007
Nov 30, 2007, 12:02
Commodore Josaia V. Bainimarama
Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs & Immigration and Minister for Information
The Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Electoral Reform and Anti-Corruption,
Acting Chief Justice,
members of the Judiciary,
Your Excellencies,
the Solicitor-General,
members of the Attorney-General’s Chambers,
members of the legal fraternity,
invited guests,
ladies and gentlemen.
Ni sa bula vinaka and good morning.
It gives me pleasure to address and open the 9th Attorney-Generals’ Conference here at the Fijian Resort. I welcome you all and look forward to meeting you and hearing from many of you in the course of the next two days.
I am a stranger to the legal profession and I am sure that the papers delivered during the Conference will be interesting and educational for me. In particular, because I am a sailor by profession, I welcome the session on ships and the sea. In fact we Navy men think there is nothing more important in life than ships and the sea. I also look forward to the papers on international law, on conservation law and on the accountability of Judges. I am particularly happy to see that you will be speaking on corruption and electoral reform.
The legal profession is closely linked to corrupt activities. This may not be very pleasant for lawyers to hear, but it is true. 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. 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.
In the Judiciary too, there are allegations of judge-shopping. Judge-shopping is not done by lay people. It is done by lawyers, who either play the case allocation system to get a Judge of their choice, or bribe Court staff to get that result. Preliminary investigations show that a number of very “respectable” law firms have been engaged in such activity. And these same lawyers and law firms are the most outspoken against the Interim Government supposedly in the protection of the rule of law. I am not a lawyer. But in my opinion, lawyers who behave corruptly, who counsel their clients to evade the law, who find ways to obstruct police investigations, and who bribe Court staff to get certain results, do more damage to the rule of law than any member of the Military has ever done. We, in our naivety believe in the law as something which will honestly protect our rights, our state, our country. 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. Like it or not, society no longer trusts lawyers. It is time for the legal profession to clean up its act. People in glass houses cannot throw stones. There is a long back-log of lawyers waiting to be disciplined. Why? Lawyers who have helped themselves to trust funds are re-admitted to practise, and one was made the Attorney-General. Why? Because we sat back and let it happen. We stopped expecting our lawyers to be honest, and for dishonest lawyers to be disciplined by the Fiji Law Society.
That brings me to the question of what we expect of the legal profession. The last Law Society Conference spent a lot of time pontificating about the rule of law and failed to ask how the Law Society itself had failed the rule of law by tolerating dishonesty and corrupt activities amongst its membership. Perhaps the new leadership will change that. I hope so.
We lay people expect lawyers to be honest. We want to know the truth. We want neutrality. We want to be told what is lawful and what is not. We want to be able to pay our lawyers and get service in return. We do not want to come to Court and be left alone there because our lawyer was so disorganized that he or she is in 3 Courts at the same time. We do not want to write 20 letters to get our money out of a lawyer’s trust funds. We do not want to pay a lawyer huge sums of money for something he or she did badly. We want professional, objective, hard-working and respectful lawyers.
In the last 7 years I have had a lot to do with the Court system. The legal profession has been under our scrutiny for some time. What do I see? I see lawyers who lost their neutrality and use their profession and the Law Society for their own political agenda. We see untidy lawyers who cannot be bothered to tuck their shirts into their trousers before coming to Court. We see lawyers who shout at each other, who are unpunctual, who are untruthful to the Court and who try to shop for Judges. As a military man, I would love to recommend compulsory regimental training for these lawyers but I don’t want to upset the trend-setters. I do think that the legal profession needs to be more accountable to its clients – the public. As for the officers of the Attorney-General’s Chambers, I give you my word that I will never order Military haircuts for you, but I do ask for neutral, non-political, honest and efficient legal services.
Now I come to the Judiciary. It is a pleasure to see senior members of the Judiciary here and especially to see that the Acting Chief Justice will be speaking on Accountable Judging.
Again, as a lay person, I know that we all respect the Judiciary, and respect the hard work it is doing to keep the Court running in spite of deliberate, calculated attempts to destroy their credibility.
However, I do wish, respectfully to remind Judges of what society expects from you. As the Judicial Code of Ethics say, Judges must be impartial, independent, diligent and honest. If judge-shopping has succeeded in the past, it is because Judges have turned a blind eye to the practice. There is a special duty on the Judiciary to maintain high standards of honesty. We await the findings of Mr Justice Connors’ Inquiry into the Magistracy with interest, but I can tell you now that while we will always respect the independence of the Judiciary, we expect the Judiciary to be especially vigilant in maintaining its own integrity.
Recently, there have been many allegations that our Judiciary has been compromised. Many of such allegations come from the very lawyers who have the most to lose from an independent Judiciary. Allegations have also come from individuals and NGOs who have joined the band-wagon but these allegations I note have not been backed by any facts.
No one can point to a single decision of our Judges since 5th December, 2006 which reveal any type of interference from the Executive, from me or the Government. However, I do know that some of our Judges have publicly expressed political views attacking the Government. Some on the other hand have used their rulings and orders to make political statements but more surprisingly refer to matters which fall outside the ambit of the particular case so they could attack the Government and/or members of the Government. As a layman, I was surprised to hear this because I thought that Judges were supposed to be politically neutral. I am sure you lawyers, on close scrutiny, would also find such remarks unusual and dare I say unjudge-like.
However, the current state of the Judiciary, notwithstanding the undeserved attacks on it, is one which deserves our confidence and pride. Those who truly adhere to the principles and implementation of an independent Judiciary and who are not driven by their personal and political interests will acknowledge that our Judiciary is independent. They will also acknowledge that the Judiciary cannot under any circumstances come to a standstill. It must continue with the effective administration of justice for the citizens of our country.
We must preserve the true independence of our Judiciary and help to make it stronger. The public deserves such a Judiciary.
I would now like to discuss Electoral Reform. As many of you by now know, I am an advocate of what has been termed “one person one vote”. I do not believe in voting along ethnic or communal basis. Voting along ethnic lines is detrimental.
It first relegates many intra-ethnic issues such as socio-economic differences and gender disparities to the background. In other words, there is an assumption that the identified ethnic group is homogenous and has no differences and/or injustices within it. Second, it engenders the so called primordial awareness and differences because one ethnic group is pitted against the other. And thirdly, as a result, it stops us from thinking as a nation and it makes political parties lazy. They do not have to produce sound socio-economic policies for the voters to choose from. All they have to do is appeal to ethnicity and the “other”.
A common roll or open seat creates equality and gives true meaning to equal franchise. It helps us think as a nation. It makes political parties more responsible and it makes Government accountable and transparent.
I know there are some who are opposed to this view because they realize that a common roll will mean hard work. It will mean that the selected elite will lose privileges, influence and material well-being.
A common roll does not mean a loss of identity of the different cultural heritages. In fact, it will enhance a greater understanding and respect of and between the different groups. Nor does it mean an assault on the indigenous people and their rights as some have tried to irresponsibly tell the public.
A common roll engenders nationhood. It fosters the legal and moral basis of a common citizenship, of a common identity, of a common name. A common roll and common name should not be seen as a threat to our different cultural identities. Our cultures are strong and vibrant.
What I and the Government are espousing is nothing unique. On the contrary, it is a universal value which is also supported by the United Nations.
In Malaysia all its citizens are called Malaysians but the special place of the indigenous who are referred to as the Bhumiputras is also recognized.
In Australia while it celebrates the plurality of society, its people do not elect its representatives along communal lines. All Australian citizens, whether they are descendants of convicts, whether they are indigenous, whether they are descendants of settlers, whether they are Aboriginal elders, whether they are immigrants first, second or third generation, all vote under a common roll. Anybody can stand as a candidate anywhere in Australia and everybody can vote for anybody in their constituency despite their background.
I ask then why is it that when we in Fiji want these systems, these precepts of nationhood, of common citizenry and equal franchise, that we are told we cannot and should not have them? After all, common roll, common citizenry and common name give true and practical meaning to democracy in a modern nation-state.
The National Council for Building a Better Fiji will commence its sitting in the next few weeks. Through the National Task Teams the Council will deliberate, amongst other matters of national importance, electoral reform. I look forward to its findings and recommendations for the benefit of our wonderful people and beloved country.
With those words, I thank you for your welcome to me and my wife, this beautiful morning in Nadroga. I now formally declare this Conference open.
Vinaka vakalevu.
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