# THE CHIEF JUSTICE, SALESI TEMO, MUST BE SUSPENDED AS THE FIRST STEP TO REBUILDING CONFIDENCE IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Of all the findings of the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry into the Barbara Malimali affair, the most urgent for the state to action is the devastating findings against Salesi Temo, the Chief Justice and Head of the Judicial Services Commission.

The Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, must go to the President immediately, if he hasn’t already done so, and advise Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu to suspend Temo for misbehaviour and trigger the constitutional process by which he is tried by a panel at least three judges.

There were ample grounds to do so even before the findings of the COI became known. But here’s the precise wording of the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation in relation to the Chief Justice that makes it inconceivable that Salesi Temo can remain in the position.

Justice David Ashton-Lewis says the Prime Minister should “consider advising the President to instigate the removal of the Chief Justice for misbehaviour”. With due respect to His Lordship, the public interest dictates that Rabuka has no choice but to do so.

Why? Because the Chief Justice sits at the pinnacle of the criminal justice system. All else flows from the decisions he makes with his fellow members of the JSC. And in line with the old saying that a dead fish rots from the head, the rot in the criminal justice system that the Commission of Inquiry has exposed flows directly from Salesi Temo.

Any notion that he can stay in the role of CJ while the current police and FICAC investigations into the COI Report proceed is unacceptable. Because simply put, the Chief Justice is the biggest obstacle to the rule of law being upheld.

That is not extravagant hyperbole. Justice Ashton Lewis has found that the Chief Justice has “potentially committed several offences”. They are:

• Obstruction of Justice.
• Abuse of Office,
• and Perjury.

As such, Salesi Temo cannot remain as head of the judiciary. There is a constitutional mechanism for him to be suspended and for a panel of judges to be assembled to try him for misbehaviour. And there is no reason why this cannot proceed in conjunction with any criminal proceedings that might arise from the current investigations. It simply must be done.

Here’s the thing, Fiji, that merely serves to increase public disquiet about the parlous state of the criminal justice system.

The Prime Minister and the President have known about the following allegations since May 1, when Justice Ashton -Lewis and his Counsel Assisting, Janet Mason, handed their report to the President with its damning conclusions.

The first thing the Prime Minister and President ( and their advisors) would have done once they received the Report was to turn to its recommendations, which you can now read for yourself in our posting yesterday.

It is all very straightforward. On May 1 or soon after, they would have become aware of the passage above. So why, more than six weeks later, have they not acted?

As Grubsheet revealed yesterday, part of the answer appears to lie in the fact that the President is related to the Chief Justice by marriage. And another part of the answer appears to lie in the fact that Ratu Naiqama is Sitiveni Rabuka’s chief. While the Constitution dictates that the President only acts on the advice of the Prime Minister, has Sitiveni Rabuka’s been balking at telling Ratu Naiqama that Salesi Temo has to go?

Whatever the truth, this impasse has gone on long enough. And the facts speak for themselves.

• It was Salesi Temo who as head of the JSC appointed Barbara Malimali to FICAC and the COI Report confirms that he told Francis Puleiwai that no court in Fiji would hear any charge she laid against Malimali, Biman Prasad or anyone else.
• He defied the Constitution to appoint John Rabuku as Acting DPP only to have that decision reversed when three Supreme Court judges said Rabuku couldn’t hold the job because he’d been found guilty of professional misconduct.
• Temo installed Nancy Tikoisuva as Acting DPP and blocked the return of the exonerated Christopher Pryde to the substantive position. Tikoisuva, in turn, reappointed John Rabuku as Deputy DPP.
• After falsely branding Pryde a thief in open court at the Tribunal hearing that cleared Pryde of misbehaviour, Salesi Temo has required Christopher Pryde to answer fresh allegations of financial misconduct from the same file..
• Pryde has done so but Temo is still refusing to either clear him or again suspend the DPP and set up another Tribunal, as the constitution stipulates. In a clear breach of his duty, Temo has instead referred Pryde to FICAC.
• So because of Temo, Fiji has two DPPs – the substantive one and the acting one – and as the COI report details, the ODPP is in turmoil, with adverse findings against John Rabuku and Nancy Tikoisuva.
• Two DPPs when we really need one – the exonerated Christopher Pryde – to work with the Police Commissioner, Rusiate Tudravu, to clean up the system and bring wrongdoers to account.

So never mind what has happened with Barbara Malimali at FICAC, the criminal justice system in Fiji under Salesi Temo is in total disarray.

With the COI’s damning finding against him, Temo cannot continue as CJ without a complete collapse of public confidence in the system. And it is for the Prime Minister and the President to man up and bring this shocking state of affairs to an end .

They will doubtless to be tempted to keep Temo in place as the judge most likely to deliver their cherished return to the 1997 Constitution. But the gravity of his conduct no longer makes that an option.

They now have no choice but to fulfill their constitutional duty to remove him as Chief Justice and Head of the JSC and replace him with an Acting CJ capable of digging the system out of its current mess.

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As Grubsheet has said for a long time, Salesi Temo is a rogue Chief Justice who has repeatedly breached the Constitution and is demonstrably unfit for the position. He must go and go now.

A selection of our previous articles.

# SALESI TEMO AND BARBARA MALIMALI. BOTH OF THEM MUST GO

# NEXT!

# A FISH ROTTING FROM THE HEAD DOWN AND A STENCH THAT CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED (UPDATED SUN AM)

# THE CORRUPTION AT THE HEART OF THE STATE

# AS THE WOLVES CIRCLE FOR SALESI TEMO, THE SHE-WOLF, IMRANA JALAL, GOES IN FOR THE KILL (UPDATED)

And there’s a great deal more. Just type “Salesi Temo” into the Grubsheet search engine on the right.