The self-exiled substantive DPP, Christopher Pryde – who has had his salary unlawfully severed since August – has had an important win in the courts, with a High Court Judge, Justice Savenaca Banuve, granting him leave for a judicial review of the decision by the President on the advice of the corrupt Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, to terminate payments to him.
Pryde hasn’t had his salary restored. That would be too much to expect from a system that has tried to thwart him at every turn. But Justice Banuve has at least left open the possibility of the DPP being able to get justice at a judicial review hearing sometime in the New Year.
Banuve – the former solicitor general of Solomon Islands, who was sworn in as a High Court Judge in Fiji two years ago -is doing precisely what he should do – asserting his independence from the clique who have done everything they can to keep Pryde from being able to return to Gunu House. This includes referring him to FICAC on trumped up charges of expenses fraud after he was exonerated by three other High Court judges on a charge of misbehaviour from the same file.
Here are the principal members of that clique – the grisly gang that has seized control of the criminal justice system to do the bidding of the Coalition government. But which happily hasn’t been able to tame judges like Savenaca Banuve and Dane Tuiqereqere, who still seem determined to dispense justice without fear or favour in accordance with the law.
Grubsheet will obviously be covering the Pryde judicial review hearing when it happens at a date to be fixed in the New Year. But in the meantime, here’s today’s judgment in full.
Great outcome.
On a slight tangent, now that Biman is no longer deputy prime minister, Richard “I have the means” Naidu suddenly has new found bravado to critique the govt just like he used to when Bai and Kai were in power.
I guess a political hack will always remain a hack.