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 (four days come Saturday) – 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/ four days ago – is a common thread linking 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 30-year 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.
I knew from the start that Graham was a bad guy when Sitiveni made him the AG. But Graham and his boys on this blog had hopes for Graham to do the right thing as AG.
Yes, we did have high hopes. But like our high hopes about many things, they have a habit of turning to dust.
The imminent arrest of a high-profile figure named in the Commission of Inquiry is a welcome step toward justice. It affirms Prime Minister Rabuka’s commitment to rooting out corruption and restoring integrity in Fiji’s institutions.
Guess you believe in Father Christmas as well?
My latest information is that the Prime Minister is determined to implement all the recommendations of the CoI Report. But in his own time. Of course Father Christmas exists. We’ve all got our stockings hanging in the window. Haven’t you? 😉
I did – took it down the moment Baimaan opened his piehole
You must feel real stupid.
Not as stupid as you look.
Oh? You’ve actually seen me?
Better than that. I’ve seen through you.
I know, you’re a know-it-all.
No, when you get to my age, I just know more than you.
“It affirms Prime Minister Rabuka’s commitment to rooting out corruption and restoring integrity in Fiji’s institutions?”
What integrity? He has no integrity himself.
Rabuka has proven over last 38 years that he is there only for himself.
He is fighting for his survival to lead the government after next election. The crocodiles in the pond makes all the difference, and he knows it. That is why he initiated the COI.
– If all the crocodiles implicated in the COI are prosecuted and given due sentences, then Rabuka will come back with sweeping majority. Basically, there will be no opposition.
– If the crocodiles remain in the dirty pond, then Rabuka becomes history, absolutely decimated.
And he knows it well!
This is the quality and caliber of high office holders in Fiji’s judicial system. These individuals are regarded as the doyens of our legal system. That’s the depth of the sewer that Fiji has descended to.
What an embarrassment to the legal profession these people are. It is obvious that their actions are for self interest or for the politicians they are aligned with. Sadly those lawyers who know how wrong this is are lying low. This also occurred during Khaiyums regime. For once in Fiji the COI was conducted by outsiders which include an experienced judge who formed his views based on all evidence put before him.
Fiji is really such a free country now that everyone and their dog is free to make the law as they go, starting from the very top, the pedo President. By letting the G11 to change allegiance and stay in parliament he made up the law on a whim.
Can that not be tested out in Court if anyone ( not me) or the other political parties are willing to do so. Seek the Courts opinion on this if any of the FFP MP’s can remain as MP’s.
Those “crocodillian” individuals who are named and shamed in the CoI Report are a disgrace to the nation despite findings of serious misconducts against them but they have refused to stand down. Now some of those distinguished individuals are fighting a rear guard action to remain in their lucrative highly paid jobs and enjoy the fruits of the rich gravy train subsidised by the poor tax payers.
Meanwhile, Rolex Rabuka, much like the “Emperor Nero” of Rome fiddles away while the credibility of Fiji’s judiciary is battered and fallen like the “house of cards” with people having lost faith or confidence of the justice system in Fiji.
Lawlessness from the top to the grassroots. Youths are also watching our leaders and encouraged to break the law. Sad!
https://www.fijitimes.com.fj/police-probe-delayed-response/?fbclid=IwdGRjcANOVn1jbGNrA05VwmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAAEeSmVyR9skpPtFOeARezEfxKujIID6EFp_tA-Pdip1DfRfWTL2fMtH6yYW_K0_aem_rGy8BTl9g5Bk1IHLgtw5FQ
Always good to admit when you’re wrong and I was wrong in what I wrote in a comment on Grubsheet [which became comment number 24 of 2025 that you have declined to publish]. I was also wrong in a Facebook post that I made a couple of days ago.
Mea culpa.
There is no Fiji Law Society leave to apply for a Judicial Review. That was my assumption – and that was my bad. I have seen the paperwork and the applicants are William Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi.
In case you think that the Fiji Law Society buckled under your withering criticism and the Dorsami-ists have forced the Council to force Clarke to force me to change my story, the leave application was filed on Tuesday before you’d even written one word on the subject.
And if you see the paperwork [which are now public documents] the only reference to the Fiji Law Society in the leave to apply for a JR is in the affidavits that explain why both attended a call from FLS member Barbara Malimali as she was being arrested on Black Thursday.
So I was wrong way back on Tuesday, and provably so.
In addition, I understand that the FLS is not paying for any costs relating to this action [including the fee, travel and expenses of the overseas counsel].
So if you are speaking on behalf of any pearl-clutching, curtain-twitching FLS members they can rest easy this Sunday as well.
The FLS Council 2024-2025 is apparently fully supportive of the Clarke and Vaurasi actions as is the new 2025-2026 intake. I have that from two sources on the Council other than Wylie.
I am updating my Facebook post accordingly.
I know it’s important for you to believe there is a coordinated conspiracy afoot and that, like members of the P2 Masonic Lodge, we’re all operating in highly geared, synchronous intrigue against the life-affirming disinfectant of Obi Wan Kenobi’s sunlight.
But that’s simply not true. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made the f*%k up I made by misidentifying the FLS as the applicant when it was Clarke and Vaurasi all along.
That’s how little I speak with Clarke, that’s how little this is being coordinated. But thank you for prompting me to asking Clarke about the issues you raised so that both of us, and your readers, could be better informed.
Charlie, this looks very much like an exercise in damage control after the event. Because how do you explain not only your original statement but the following extract from CFL-Fiji Village?
” Another three judicial review applications have been filed in the High Court in relation to the Commission of Inquiry into the appointment of Barbara Malimali as FICAC Commissioner.
Former Attorney General Graham Leung, the Fiji Law Society and Malimali have filed the applications.
Malimali’s lawyer, Tanya Waqanika confirms they are asking for the Commission of Inquiry report to be quashed and also claiming for damages.
Leung has referred all questions to his legal counsel.
The Fiji Law Society confirms the application has been filed and they are waiting to be advised on when it will be called.”
I note you are again playing matanivanua for Wylie Clarke. But Grubsheet and undoubtedly the mainstream media would expect a formal announcement from Wylie Clarke and Laurel Vaurasi that they are doing this in a personal capacity. As far as I can see, we have yet to see that announcement.
I can just imagine the furore the Grubsheeet article has caused behind the scenes among the FLS membership and the resulting blind panic. As public relations failures go, this is a doozy. But the suspicion has to be that what you are now reporting has only happened because of the resulting furore.
In any event, it doesn’t alter the fact that your attacks on the CoI have been scandalous. I gather that moves are underway to have you charged under Section 16 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act. As far as I can see, it is an open and shut case which on conviction, carries a maximum jail term of two years. Good luck. In both senses of the phrase in Fiji.