# THE CONCERTED ATTEMPT, LET’S CALL IT THE CONSPIRACY, TO DESTROY THE SUPREME COURT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY (UPDATED SATURDAY AM)

The news that the Fiji Law Society and the sacked attorney general, Graham Leung, have joined Barbara Malimali and the Judicial Services Commission headed by the rogue Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, in filing applications for judicial reviews to quash the findings of the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry is startling but predictable.

There is now a concerted effort across a broad front to destroy the credibility of the CoI and upend the multi-million dollar effort to remove the “crocodiles” who have corrupted Fiji’s institutions of state. And make no mistake. It all amounts to a conspiracy – a plot between some of the most influential people in Fiji, acting in concert – to subvert a lawfully constituted Commission of Inquiry by a Judge of Fiji’s highest court.

Grubsheet first got wind of today’s announcement on Tuesday September 30 – three days ago – in the following extract from a missive from social media warrior Charlie Charters – who has taken it upon himself to wage a sustained campaign to discredit the CoI on behalf of his friend of three decades, the President of the Law Society, Wylie Clarke.

“Today the Fiji Law Society filed their application for a judicial review of the COI Report and tomorrow Graham Leung’s will be filed just inside the notional deadline of October 1. So that means four JRs on the COI Report plus Malimali’s JR of the process leading up to her sacking.”

In the event, we chose to wait for a formal announcement on the information Charlie Charters sent us. Yet here’s the thing, Fiji. It was the day after the announcement on Monday (September 29) that Wylie Clarke had been re-elected President of the Fiji Law Society.

None of the accompanying publicity about Clarke’s reappointment mentioned the judicial review application by the FLS of the CoI’s adverse findings against Wylie Clarke and a former Law Society President, Laurel Vaurasi. This was for their role last September 5 in the installation of Barbara Malimali as commissioner at FICAC and the removal of the acting deputy commissioner, Francis Puleiwai.

Here’s the relevant extract from the CoI Report, referring to Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi as being part of an alleged “conspiracy to obstruct or pervert the course of justice”.

The questions that now arise include the following:

• In Wylie Clarke’s campaign to be reappointed Fiji Law Society President, did he campaign on the basis that the nation’s lawyers would be bankrolling an attempt to overturn the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry?
• Did Clarke disclose that under his renewed leadership, he would use the Law Society as a vehicle to attempt to clear his name and that of Laurel Vaurasi when no adverse finding was made against the FLS itself?
• Do the nation’s lawyers as a whole – or at least the members of the FLS – support the High Court application by the Society for a judicial review of the CoI?
• Are they willing to see their membership fees going towards funding their President’s campaign to overturn the findings against him and throttle the entire Inquiry and the evidence it has uncovered of corruption in the institutions of state?
• Is that the role of the nation’s lawyers – to attempt to subvert a Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry by pursuing action in a lower court to have its findings quashed?

We know that Wylie Clarke won 80 of the 119 votes cast in the FLS leadership ballot and the other 39 went to Dorsami Naidu, who has called on Wylie Clarke to stand aside until the allegations against him are determined.

• Has the Dorsami Naidu faction sanctioned the Fiji Law Society’s High Court Action?
• Were they even consulted?
• Are the nation’s lawyers as a whole united in the belief that the entire CoI Inquiry should be junked? Or is it only those findings against Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi? Questions, questions and as yet, no answers.

Yet once again, we have an organisation of which two of its members have been adversely mentioned making an application for a judicial review when it surely ought to be an application made and funded by the two individuals themselves.

The same has happened in the case of the Judicial Services Commission, which is using public money to fund a judicial review application on behalf of the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, and the Chief Registrar, Tomasi Bainivalu, when they too should be paying their own way.

So the nation’s lawyers who are members of the FLS are paying for Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi and the Fijian taxpayer is paying for Salesi Temo and Tomasi Bainivalu to defend adverse findings made against them personally. It is an outrage that must not be allowed to stand.

The purpose of this concerted four-pronged action – Malimali, the JSC and now the FLS and Graham Leung – is to bury the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry once and for all. As for evidence of a conspiracy, Charlie Charters – who gave Grubsheet the heads-up three days ago – is a common thread between at least some of the main players.

Charters lodged an official complaint against Justice David Ashton-Lewis with the JSC, alleging fraud in the Judge’s application to sit on the Supreme Court, and Salesi Temo has used this as the basis to file a complaint against the Judge with the police. Grubsheet has also described Charters as the matanivanua for Wylie Clarke as FLS President, having declared a three decade-long friendship with him in successive articles praising Clarke and attacking the CoI in the Fiji Times. And both Clarke and Charters happen to be long-time friends of Graham Leung, who the Prime Minister sacked for his mishandling of the Malimali issue.

What happens next? The High Court Judge, Justice Dane Tuiqereqere, is already poised to hear the judicial review applications by Barbara Malimali and the JSC ( Temo and Bainvalu). Will he also hear the applications by the Fiji Law Society and Graham Leung? And will they be heard separately or concurrently? That remains to be seen.

A couple of things we can predict:

• That many of the nation’s lawyers will be appalled that they are now party to an attempt by Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi to protect their own positions and that they will be funding the FLS case.
• And that having already flagged that no full hearing dates will be set before next year, Justice Tuiqereqere is ensuring that this whole scandalous saga will unfold in the courts during election year. Which is a disaster for the Coalition when it is already up to its neck in scandal.

Finally, stand by for the dramatic arrest of one of the principals named in the CoI Report. Grubsheet is assured that it is about to happen. And when it does, it will be the end of any debate about whether the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, was justified in setting up the Inquiry.

Even if these judicial review applications succeed, they will not affect the investigations that are currently underway at FICAC and the Police CID arising from the CoI recommendations. We now know that one of them has already produced sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to proceed to court and others will undoubtedly follow.

So the net is closing in on at least some of the “crocodiles” David Ashton-Lewis was asked “to remove from the pond”. And many Fijians will be hoping is that this clean-out of the nation’s corrupted institutions is now an unstoppable force.

NOTE TO READERS:

Not for the first time, Vijay Narayan is wrong. Barbara Malimali was the first to file for judicial review and the first hearing date has been set for October 27. She was followed by the JSC and they have now been joined by the Fiji Law Society and Graham Leung.

Can there be any doubt that this is a concerted four-pronged action to derail the CoI? It must not be allowed to succeed. And as Grubsheet has said before, the government must fund a Kings Counsel or Senior Counsel from overseas to defend the state’s position and uphold the reputation of the CoI and the Prime Minister himself.

UPDATE SATURDAY AM:

An update with more background details.