Wylie Clarke – the President of the Fiji Law Society representing the nation’s lawyers in private practice – has strongly criticised the Acting DPP, Nancy Tikoisuva, and her Deputy, John Rabuku, over their conduct in referring the substantive DPP, Christopher Pryde, to FICAC with unproven allegations after he was exonerated by a judicial Tribunal of misbehaviour, reinstated by the President and is due to resume work on Monday.
Reflecting Grubsheet’s reporting earlier today that much of the legal profession is aghast about the actions of Tikoisuva and Rabuku, Wylie Clarke says they have prejudged Christopher Pryde’s guilt in their public statements when it is merely a complaint to FICAC and the DPP may never be charged with wrongdoing.
The Law Society statement adds to the febrile speculation about the motives of Nancy Tikoisuva and John Rabuku in referring allegations to FICAC that have already been examined by the Judicial Services Commission but weren’t part of its case against the DPP at the recent Tribunal hearing into the charges against him.
According to an authoritative Grubsheet source, the Acting DPP and her Deputy have been waging a desperate last-ditch attempt to try to deter Christopher Pryde from returning to Gunu House knowing that he has the constitutional power to remove them. “They have calculated that the reference to FICAC will scare him into not returning to Fiji. It is their final shot and if Christopher Pryde stares them down, they really don’t have any other recourse”, this source said.
Will the FICAC Commissioner, Barbara Malimali, comply with the wishes of her friends at the ODPP and apply the blowtorch to Christopher Pryde with material that the JSC has already rejected in its failed prosecution of him? That remains to be seen but it would be an extremely high risk strategy under the circumstances.
Grubsheet is simultaneously learning that Barbara Malimali has come under “intense pressure” at the current judicial Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances of her appointment as FICAC Commissioner. Will she want to open up another front of alleged misconduct by pursuing Christopher Pryde with material the JSC rejected when her reputation and her job are already on the line?
Some people like Nancy and John are suckers for punishment. But will Barbara Malix2, also be willing to risk all to try to save the jobs of her friends? Much more to come as the clock ticks down to Christopher Pryde’s return to Suva.
He has informed the official secretary to the President that he will report to the Chief Justice on Monday morning, as requested, before returning to Gunu House to eyeball Nancy Tikoisuva and John Rabuku face-to-face. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall?
POSTSCRIPT:
A Grubsheet reader writes below…
Laisani Tabuakuro can not only be comforted in the knowledge that she has left herself wide open to be fired. She has also seriously defamed her boss, the DPP, and this defamation may cost her a lot more than her job.
What an idiot. But someone who already has form.
The Senior Prosecutor FLS is referring to is Laisani Tabuakuro. Assistant DPP who was a lawyer in Palau and brought in by Rabuku. She wrote on her Facebook page:
“Christopher Pryde will resume at the DPPs office on January 20, 2025. His return to Fiji will be a wonderful opportunity for FICAC to question him on the allegations of serious financial malpractice that we have found on his files for the past 10 years. Even if he returns and fires me, I am comforted in the knowledge that he will be charged. #JusticeWins”
In this post she uploaded DPP’s Press Release, which appeared under Nancy Tikoisuva’s name.
We need to remember that John and Nancy are not the only ones in this. The Press Release makes it clear that Meli Vosawale, Paulini Madanavosa, Laisani Tabuakuro, who are all Assistant DPPs, John Rabuku who is Deputy and Nancy Tikoisuva, the FORMER Acting DPP, and now consultant (as per her original contract with DPP when John Rabuku was the illegal DPP) – have all rummaged through Pryde’s personal file and lodged the complaint to FICAC.
They are now betting on the fact that they are complainants and cannot be removed from DPP as Chris would be interfering with “witnesses” in the active FICAC investigation.
They are also betting on the fact that for as long as they remain in DPP, they can control the outcomes of active investigations like those against Barbara and MPs who have complaints lodged in CID. Equally clear is their motive to keep Temo, CR Bainivalu and Graham Leung safe by ensuring that they do not face charges in subverting the authority of Francis Puleiwai when Barbara was appointed as Commissioner FICAC by JSC.
Obviously these individuals have been playing fast and loose when it comes to procedure. This was evident in the various charges and appeals which were fast tracked while they have been in office. These individuals are in complete cahoots with the CID and Police.
Chris needs to remember. Our bilateral partners are watching. Our diplomatic partners are watching. He has waited 22 months to receive justice and he has been exonerated. He needs to come back to his office and restore law and order in this country – one constitutional office at a time – starting with his own.
Meli Vosawale, Paulini Madanavosa, Laisani Tabuakuro….all crooks with their bosses Nancy and the Limp Stallion. Should be sent packing next week. Laisani should go and find a job in Kiribati or wherever she was in before she DPP etc etc..
It was Palau. Palau’s loss is, er, Fiji’s loss too.
I feel so sad sometimes when those in power just fail to look beyond the bridge of their noses. We need to see the bigger picture and the impacts on development this sort of instability in government institutions cause. Come back Chris here has said it clearly… our diplomatic partners are watching…
Work colleuges in Palau tell me she only prosecuted minor offences like speeding tickets and was not even any good at dealing with those prosecutions so to be hoisted to a very senior position in DPPs office purely on grounds of race , political allegiance and being a personal freind of John Rabuku is shocking
Tabuakuro is a rather unedifying human being. She together with the gyrating jigaboos Rabuka, Nancy and Barbara, and Temo bring the cringeworthy back into the practice of law in Fiji.
Despicable the whole lot of them!
These crooks should be sacked on Pryde’s first day at work. They don’t have confidence in their boss’s leadership then they should resign.
Based on their actions so far, what a disgraceful lot. But hey they are like this dysfunctional coalition government. Disgraceful lot of crooks and hypocritical people.
Nancy stopped being Acting DPP when President reinstated Chris.
She stopped being Acting DPP that day.
She cannot issue Press Releases as Acting DPP.
Never in the history of the ODPP has a Press Release been issued to talk about anything other than charges laid in a public interest case, or that ODPP will appeal a sentence that it considers lenient. Surely never in the history of any institution in Fiji has an officer (still clutching on to an acting role when it has clearly ended) issued a Press Release under her name to say a complaint has been lodged against her boss.
Never.
GD. Things are getting very seriously chaotic and even more dubious at the ODPP. All the non scheming non liumuri lawyers have been told by Nancy, Laisani and rabuku, meli and paulini that they have to all sign a petition to the pedo president, the fat clown Temo and the JSC and Graham the ugly goat AG. The petition says they have no faith in Christopher Pride as DPP and that they cannot work with him. All the lawyers have been threatened by rabuku, nancy, laisani, meli and paulini that if they don’t put their name and sign this petition they will be sacked from the ODPP!!!
This how low they are prepared to go…all of course with the kind blessings of Temo and his master Rabaku.
Total shambles, and one where the sign “keep calm and carry on” has been replaced with “you don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps”.
FICAC should be investigating how, for example, public officials awarded tax holidays to foreign company in what appear to be dodgy circumstances. That’s a public interest issue for every tax payer in Fiji.
The ins and outs of a contract of employment are not in the public interest.
Forget foreign investors and the rule of law, this looks like a cabal of nutters are running the shitshow and they don’t care what it does to Fiji’s reputation. We’re in tatters.
What an infantile bunch. A commonality among some of them is their experience working in tiny island countries, where no doubt they were ‘big’ fish in a puddle, operating according to their own ‘standards’ and entrenching (likely pre-existing) behaviour not in keeping with professional standards.
Posting unprofessionally on social media is not new to a few of them.
Rabuku also posted (and then deleted) a snippy, and grammatically erroneous, reply to the FLS’s FB page press release post today- screenshots are circulating on X and FB.
“I’m not a member of the Fiji Law Society but it’s annoying how you Wylie and your lawyers at the FLS are picky and inconsistent on the rule of law issues in Fiji.
There is a number of public issues that the FLS has not made a rule of law stand on when you are expected to. So stop being hypocrites. Come to the office and have a discussion with us so you understand where we coming from.. You are just up the road… aren’t you?”
No sense of decorum or common sense at all.
It will be a huge job for Mr Pryde on his return to his office on Monday. He will probably need to spend the first few weeks, at least, reviewing all of the files that have ammased in the time he has been away and digging to find the skeletons that this under qualified and stupid pack of people have hidden.
What should make it a little easier is that they never expected that he would return, so the depth at which they buried the bodies will make it easier for them to be brought to the surface.
Their fingerprints will be all over the tools and methods that they used and should easily lead to those responsible being held to account and charged for the relevant crimes they have committed.
After his suspension and the length of time he was away from the office, I am sure that they would have become complacent and made stupid mistakes in their efforts to cover their tracks, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pick out the rotten apples and dispose of them.
Hopefully never to be seen again.
I doubt Milamila has any intention of acting against her friends and the interest of Baigaan Prasad and Rabuka.
All this will end in Pryde having to resign and let the corruption in fiji fester on.
What a sad and ugly state of affairs.
in response to “Total Shambles”
Sorry, you got it way off, they are not mad.
They are arrogant, racist, nasty, greedy self serving cohort who ride on the back of an indigenous rights platform showing all the confidence of zealots.
Pity they are “stupid” , for if they weren’t, they might succeed.
These are the young ” hot shot lawyers” that are supposed to be the saviors of the iTaukei race, the tip of the spear for PAP, Office of President, RFMF, Fiji Police, GCC ?
Fiji’s greatest curse and blessing are the bureaucrats in the Civil and Public Service Class.
They get in the way, dampen all progress to their utmost, as change is anathema to them. One might consider their resistance to progress a curse, the flip side to that coin, is that hot head ethno-nationalist zealots get the same treatment, and so the blessing.
This story is still playing out……………
and its going to take a long time as the Military is providing no guidance, no leadership at all, no self reflection on a ” Constitution” they Amended and implemented by removing the most important section in the Constitution, the 50 member Constitutional Assembly, the safety valve, that was designed to allow for the Amendment of the Constitution by the people in a sane and open forum with checks and balances.
The pressure by those who believe ( rightly or wrongly) the Constitution does not serve them has become a political “cause”, that has required them to plan a strategy to bring about change to the Constitution. This strategy has been to undertake ” lawfare” against the Constitution. To succeed at this strategy, has required them to put all their pieces in place and then go for the “check mate”.
The Counter attack, or block, has been made. Will the block work? Will its knees stand up to the pressure?
There are many more moves to be made.
Evil never sleeps.
Meanwhile the people feed $200 million dollars year to the people on the hill that takes food from mothers and babies mouths to just eat and sh*t and acquire worthless academic papers, while the country experiences chaos.