# THE BLOWTORCH IS ABOUT TO BE APPLIED TO JUSTICE DANE TUIQEREQERE FOR “ERRORS” IN HIS JUDGMENT ON THE ASHTON-LEWIS COI

Dane Tuiqereqere – the novice High Court Judge handpicked by the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, to junk the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry that had accused him of perverting the course of justice – will soon have his work picked apart by at least three other judges in the Court of Appeal.

Grubsheet interrupts our break today to publish the details of the Prime Minister’s appeal against the findings Justice Tuiqereqere made against him in his astonishing ruling that the entire COI be declared null and void. Not just some of it but the whole lot.

While the grounds of appeal thus far are confined to Sitiveni Rabuka‘s role in the saga, if the Court of Appeal upholds the Prime Minister’s application, it will pave the way for Justice Tuiqereqere’s entire judgment to be revisited. Yes, the very real prospect that the COI Report is no longer null and void but is reinstated – or parts of it reinstated – with all that could mean for anyone who received adverse findings.

A Grubsheet contact who knows Dane Tuiqereqere says that during a recent encounter, the Judge was visibly anxious about the potential implications – the humiliation that would befall the former accident compensation specialist if he is found wrong in law for any of his findings. Yet in relation to the Prime Minister alone, the Court of Appeal is being asked to overturn no less than 13 of them.

If that happens, what about Tuiqereqere’s other findings? Will more court action follow? Almost certainly given the reputations at stake, not least that of Justice David Ashton-Lewis, who with his counsel assisting Janet Mason, conducted the marathon inquiry. The Prime Minister is opening a pandora’s box that could play out in the courts for many months, if not years.

Read on for the juicy details about the precise grounds of appeal, including the famous “crocodiles in the pond” comment attributed to the Prime Minister.

We haven’t yet got a date for the appeal hearing. But when it comes, it won’t just be the crocodiles in the pond stirring again but the very public probing by some eminent Court of Appeal judges of a veritable nest of vipers.

NOTE TO READERS:

Events move so fast in Fiji that I have barely been away for a week and all hell has broken loose. This includes…

…the People’s Alliance gaining a new porn star for its election line-up in the form of the now resigned Acting Attorney General and Minister for Muff Diving, Siromi Turaga, who joins the celebrated Minister for Bonking and Weed, Lynda Tabuya, as stellar examples to the nation’s young people.

…and old Jelly Back, Biman Prasad, finally gaining a spine with the election approaching and standing up for the minorities against threats to throw them into a lovo for disrespecting the chiefs.

On the plus side, the iTaukei no longer seem interested in eating these miscreants but maybe that’s because they’re so busy eating their own wives. For his cunnilingual dexterity, Siromi Turaga is now a national hero and is bound to be at the top of the PAP ticket with the Siren of Room 233.

We still don’t know how the now widely-shared Siromi master class in keeping a spouse happy got onto his Facebook page in the first place. Was it self promotion on his part or did his missus want the world to know how good he is with his tongue?

One thing is certain. Siromi didn’t learn this at Sunday School as the luveni talatala – the son of a Methodist minister. (It’s something he and I have in common).

There’s lots more, of course, but Grubsheet has been sampling French delights of another sort in New Caledonia and is understandably in no hurry to return to the keyboard full time.

Sota tale (again) .