All of the focus thus far arising from Justice Dane Tuiqereqere‘s judgment in the Malimali Affair has been his (contested) ruling that her dismissal was unlawful because it was recommended to the President by the Prime Minister and not the Judicial Services Commission headed by the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo.
But dig deeper into the ruling and it is clear that Justice Tuiqereqere has knowingly or unwittingly made it impossible for Barbara Malimali to be reinstated as FICAC Commissioner.
He has also thrown a spotlight on the failure of the Chief Justice to properly vet Malimali in the first place, appointing her when she had been denied a legal practicing certificate in Tuvalu because of professional misconduct and lied about it in successive sworn declarations.
Far from propping up Salesi Temo’s position, Justice Tuiqereqere appears to have placed him under existential threat. While Temo says the JSC will make a decision at the end of March on whether to recommend reinstating Barbara Malimali as FICAC head after submissions from the various parties, he has already been checkmated and so has Malimali herself.
How? Because in his judgment, Justice Tuiqereqere lays out the case against Malimali made by Justice David Ashton-Lewis and his Commission of Inquiry. And while he restates the legal position that the contents of the CoI are not binding on the JSC, the Judge himself refused to make a recommendation as to whether she should be reinstated. Instead he threw it back at the JSC knowing, as he must have, that he was placing the Chief Justice in an impossible position.
Why? Because if Salesi Temo didn’t know about the debacle in Tuvalu and the false declarations when the JSC appointed Barbara Malmali to FICAC, he sure knows about them now. And not only from the CoI Report but from Justice Tuiqereqere’s ruling, which contains a sting in the tale capable of inflicting a lethal wound against not only Malimali but the Chief Justice himself.
Read on and the sting in the tale becomes obvious.
1/ Justice Tuiqereqere leaves open the possibility of the JSC not re-instating Barbara Malimali – as she and her lawyer, Tanya Waqanika , are demanding – but suspending her for misbehaviour for having made false declarations and putting her before a tribunal of three High Court judges to determine her innocence or guilt, as the Constitution stipulates.
2/ That is an open-and-shut case because the evidence that Malimali made false declarations is established fact.
3/ Were the Chief Justice and the JSC as a whole to ignore this evidence and recommend the reinstatement of Malimali at the end of March, it is Salesi Temo who would also be facing the threat of suspension for misbehaviour and a tribunal hearing. Because while he has a record of defying the Constitution, he wouldn’t get away with such a blatant violation of the law.
So take if from Grubsheet, Fiji. Barbara Malimali isn’t coming back. It is all over bar the shouting from her and Tanya Waqanika – a great deal of shouting that isn’t going to make a jot of difference. She is toast and Salesi Temo will be toast if he doesn’t fall into line.
Nor does Malimali deserve any compensation whatsoever – no “settlement” or sweetheart deal – having lied in such an egregious manner in applying for the FICAC job. And if anyone in the JSC or the Attorney General’s office tries to pay her one saqamoli of public money, they should be tried for corruption by any incoming government after the election.
All of which means that Justice Dane Tuiqereqere may be a lot smarter than some of us have given him credit for. Grubsheet has been critical of someone with a career in the law specialising in accident compensation over-riding the opinions of two New Zealand constitutional experts and Kings Counsel – Professor Philip Joseph and Dr Andrew Butler – that the Prime Minister DID have the legal authority to advise the President to suspend Barbara Malimali.
But as an old saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat. And on present indications, Justice Tuiqereqere has well and truly skinned “Bad Barbie” and has also created a pathway for his boss, the Chief Justice, to be skinned if he doesn’t set up a tribunal to investigate Malimali for her egregious lies and corruption.
Read on for the relevant extracts from Tuiqereqere’s judgment and decide for yourself what is likely to happen at the end of March.
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So what will the JSC decide? Justice Tuiqereqere has presented Salesi Temo with a poisoned chalice. Recommend to the President that Barbara Malmali’s suspension by the Prime Minister stand and set up a judicial tribunal for try her for misbehaviour. Or reinstate her and face the prospect of being suspended for misbehaviour himself.
What’s it to be Chief Justice?
The original decision of the JSC in their appointment of Barbara Malimali as the FICAC Commissioner is now clearly shown to be wrong. The lack of due diligence is appalling and one has to wonder on what premise the decision was made.
Her previous position as Chair of the Electoral Commission is also one to ask questions of as the Constitution at s.75(6) requires the Chair to be a person who is qualified to be or is a judge. So, on what basis did the Constitutional Offices Commission conclude that Ms. Malimali met the criteria? Or did they also not apply due diligence to her appointment?
Then of course we have the issue of Ms. Malimali being the subject of a FICAC investigation into her conduct as Chair of the Electoral Commission by the Deputy Commissioner Francis Puleiwai at the time of her appointment.
The mess called Fiji continues and if the JSC attempt to reappoint Barbara Malmali it will prove it to be so.
Check mate
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
To deceive,
I believe.
Am sure Tanya has something up her sleeve.
Yes, in astronomy, they call it a black hole. Nothing can escape. Not her or her loudmouthed client.
Tuiqereqere has just shown why he would make a better CJ then the current useless gorilla sitting in that role. He knows how to deflect professionally.
The case brought by Big Boobed Malimali was to seek a judicial review and if in her favour, get a ruling to reinstate her to her role. Tuiqereqere dodged a bullet there by leaving this bit of the ruling open-ended and throwing it back at the equally corrupt and inept JSC.
The fact that Big Boobed Malimali lied on several occassions when applying for her practicing certificate to the point where she has been blacklisted from a country is certainly enough to ensure she will not be returning to her former role. For someone who lies for personal gain or to save her skin, she is someone the government would not risk having around as she is likely to lie and/or falsify information to protect herself while sacrificing others.
While Tuiqereqere is correct the procedure for removal of an officer appointed by the JSC shall be the same as the procedure for the removal of Judges, i.e. by way of a tribunal being appointed, etc., the reality is neither the government nor JSC will do this given they have already skipped several legal/constitutional processes in removing her and the bigger fact that elections are around the corner.
Rabuka knows his government will not survive this round and is working out his plan of attack by identifying coalition partners he needs to bed in order to stay in government either as a PM or a minister, depending on the voice of the voters. He may even be considering his future as an opposition member.
Big Boobed Malimali is now a forgotten useless noise like Veronica Malani and will have to go and wave her goods in someone elses face to keep the money flowing into her purse.
I strongly suspect you’d like those big boobs to be waving in your face.
Can you please spare us that imagery? The case itself is disturbing enough.
1. What’s going on in Saleshni’s mind to finalize both the JSC’s position on Malimali’s case and Kaiyum’s case judgement by end of March 2026? Is it Full Moon effect or Julius Caesar’s ides of March prophecy effect or post Valentines Day effect or a preview of April Fools Day drama effect?
2. Saleshni said he was too busy to write Kai’s judgement since November 2025 but now has all the time in this whole world to handle both Malimali and Kai together so promptly. Saleshni has now aligned finalization of date together just like sun, moon and earth aligns to achieve Solar eclipse. I now wonder whether Kai and all will wear sunglasses to court (one final time) to deal with the solar eclipse.
3. Well, whatever it is, the alignment of dates to the end of March gives a pattern of behavior that fully confirms a deal reached between Rumbooka and Saleshni to not to appeal Malimali’s case so that Kai goes to jail.
So no money for mounjaro or wegovy for Tanya and Barbs.
Just go for Sri Lankan cinnamon and Meta.
Justice Tuiqereqere, if you’re reading this, Thank you. Please remain as one of the very few Justices under CJ Temo who still has ethics and integrity.
Malimali had been unfairly scrutinized from day 1. No one is squeaky clean and she is one of the best persons to be head of FICAC. She is not a racist and she is an independent person.
GD needs to leave aside the views of his friend Janet and think independently and strategically.
Malimali as FICAC commissioner is bad news for Rabuka and his corrupt ministers, and good news for those who fight for good governance in this country.
In his blind hate for Malimali, GD is supporting the deeply racist Vakalalabure clan who have made a mockery of FICAC and FSC. He needs to think clearly. Malimali is someone with the courage, conviction and ability to build an independent FICAC that will send dread into the hearts of Rambo’s current ministers and associates. It will provide the counter balance to Rambo’s almost unchecked power…. Something the country desperately needs.
Unfairly scrutinised? Are you kidding? A FICAC Commissioner should be like Caesar’s wife – not only above suspicion but seen to be above suspicion.
Google it: “The phrase is used to highlight the importance of maintaining trust in public figures, and that those in positions of authority should avoid even the implication or appearance of impropriety”.
Does Barbara Malimali pass this test? No. It is established fact that she lied in her application for the FICAC job in having signed a sworn statement that she had never been found guilty of professional misconduct anywhere when she had been barred from practicing in Tuvalu.
That is enough to bar her from public office of any kind, quite apart from the findings against her in the CoI Report and her appalling record of high-handed conduct and racism. Yes racism.
She even expressed the view at the CoI that the “foreigners” conducting the inquiry weren’t fit to pass judgment on her as an iTaukei. This was despite the fact that Janet Mason is a Fiji citizen, her mother is iTaukei and she speaks the Fijian language. Malimali’s conduct in claiming Mason and David Ashton-Lewis had no right to sit in judgment of her when this was a lawfully-constituted commission of inquiry was outrageous.
I am a “friend” of Janet Mason? I wish. What she has produced in the CoI Report is the most impressive document of its kind that I have ever seen emerge from Fiji – a tour de force which I understand she wrote in less than a month. So I can only dream of emulating her skills of expression and analysis. And talk about grace under pressure.
Charlie Charters and others keep targeting Mason for professional issues in New Zealand that have nothing to do with her conduct with the CoI. They are irrelevant. And never once, as far as I can see, have they been able to find fault with anything she as done in relation to the CoI, where also as far as I can see, her professionalism has been faultless.
I am not alone in also being impressed that never once did Janet Mason rise to the bait when she was being taunted by Barbara Malimali for being an outsider. I gather they both went to Jasper Williams School in Lautoka, though clearly at different times.
If I had been Janet Mason, I’d have told Malimali to “eff off” in no uncertain terms. But because she has never made a big deal of it, most people still don’t know that Mason is a part-iTaukei local who lives near Vatukoula and has an office in Tavua as well as in NZ. They think she is a Kiwi but I gather she doesn’t even hold NZ citizenship and apart from her accent, is Fijian to the core. So I am certainly an admirer and hope she has a great deal more to contribute to public life.
I don’t have “blind hate” for Barbara Malimali but I do regard her with distaste. Why? Because her conduct has demonstrated that she is unfit to hold public office of any kind, let alone be the corruption watchdog and pronounce judgment on the conduct of others.
That conduct speaks for itself and I repeat: She will not be returning to FICAC if there is even a skerrick of integrity left in the JSC. And for you to portray her as some kind of paragon of virtue – “something the country desperately needs” – is preposterous. Fiji doesn’t need her or anyone like her, especially guarding against wrongdoing at the top.