The incestuous relationship between major players in Fiji was on full display in Vijay Narayan‘s grovelling interview last Thursday with the President of the Fiji Law Society, Wylie Clarke, in which Clarke was given an almost hour-long platform to attack the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry into the Malimali affair.
It is painful to watch (see below) – the follicly-challenged host of “Straight Talk” feeding “Wylie” lines with a level of familiarity and obsequiousness that was noticeably absent in his subsequent interview with Justice David Ashton-Lewis himself, who got a blow-torch by comparison.
“Wylie” gets free kick after free kick. And it’s not just the ultra-soft line of questioning that stands out but the body language – matey in the extreme and decidedly unsettling because Clarke looks so dodgy – coughing and touching his nose in classic signs familiar to any interrogator of dissembling and a lack of candour. (Believe me, as a seasoned television interviewer, I know the signs myself. )
Wily Wylie wants us to believe that he hadn’t had a relationship with Barbara Malimali for years but with one phone call from her, assembled a team of lawyers ( the CoI called it a “rescue party”) to go to FICAC to free her after she had been arrested on the orders of the then acting FICAC deputy commissioner, Francis Puleiwai.
Why? Because Malimali was the lawfully-appointed FICAC Commissioner – Wiley Clarke says – parroting the line of the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, in accusing Puleiwai of having a conflict of interest because she wanted Malimali’s job. It was a conclusion rejected by the CoI but Wylie Clarke now feels free to run with it again because the CoI Report was quashed by Justice Dane Tuiqereqere.
We don’t have space here to go through the minutiae of claim and counterclaim about the CoI findings except to make an obvious point. Why was the President of the Fiji Law Society discussing the detail and trying to cast it as history when he must have known that the Prime Minister is appealing the Tuiqereqere judgment – first to the Court of Appeal and if necessary, he says, to the Supreme Court, Fiji’s highest?
Fact: One judge of the Fiji High Court in the form of Justice Tuiqereqere has declared the Ashton-Lewis Report “null and void” but the appellate process has begun so it is not null and void at all. That will be decided by a panel of more senior judges. And that appeal is bound to examine how a Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry can be junked altogether on the say-so of a novice judge with less than three years experience and with a background in personal accident compensation.
Even if some of the Report is found to be wanting, surely some of its conclusions were correct in law. And with FICAC staff swearing on oath before the CoI that they were intimidated by Wylie Clarke and his posse who went to free Barbara Malimali on September 5, 2024, it is not yet conclusive that they are off the hook.
With a Court of Appeal hearing pending, what was the President of the Law Society – representing Fiji’s lawyers in private practice – doing canvassing the issues in a television interview? That’s the question some senior lawyers are asking as they make the point that it would be unheard of in Australia and NZ for any head of a legal professional body to publicly discuss matters that are going to appeal.
Yet it’s not just the appropriateness of Wylie Clarke’s conduct in talking to Vijay Narayan that is raising eyebrows. His lack of candour is also an issue and especially about his secret attempt to use his influence with the Prime Minister to try to have Salesi Temo removed as Chief Justice. It is something that places him exactly on the same side as Justice David Ashton-Lewis. In fact, Wylie Clarke was telling the PM that Temo was unfit long before Ashton-Lewis did so with the CoI.
Fact: Wylie Clarke told Grubsheet after Temo was appointed Acting Chief Justice in January 2023 that he had gone to Sitiveni Rabuka and informed him on behalf of the Law Society that Temo was unfit to be Chief Justice. He said the Prime Minister’s response had been to assure Clarke that Temo would not be confirmed in the position. Yet on Christmas Eve 2024, Temo was confirmed as CJ in direct contravention of what the PM had told the head of the Law Society.
We now know that some reports have it that the President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, defied the Constitution and took it upon himself to confirm his relative by marriage, Salesi Temo, as Chief Justice without telling the Prime Minister. Rabuka himself has never addressed the issue. But why hasn’t Wylie Clarke ever gone public with the story that the PM assured him that Temo would never be confirmed? It is surely a matter of vital public interest.
Instead, Wylie Clarke goes public in the Vijay Narayan interview with a story that Justice David Ashton-Lewis asked him if the Law Society would back him as Chief Justice – something Clarke says was inappropriate and had “shocked him”. In his own subsequent interview with Vijay Narayan, Ashton-Lewis denies this conversation occured. But he claims that in a separate encounter with Clarke, the Law Society President had said Salesi Temo was unfit to be CJ and had urged Ashton-Lewis to take the job if it was offered to him.
Which version of the story is true? It is the word of a Supreme Court judge against Wylie Clarke. But set against the story Wylie Clarke told me about Temo’s unfitness to be Chief Justice, the Ashton-Lewis account of what happened certainly seems more plausible. Because if Clarke was telling me Temo was unfit and the Prime Minister had assured him he would never be confirmed, it is eminently possible, even likely under the circumstances, that he told David Ashton-Lewis the same thing.
Whatever the claims and counter-claims, the truth will eventually be established, assuming the Prime Minister’s appeal against the Tuiqereqere judgment goes ahead. Yet even before that happens, it is Wylie Clarke’s judgment that is now in the spotlight.
- Why did he give an interview to Vijay Narayan when he must have heard the stories sweeping Suva that the Prime Minister was intent on appealing the Tuiqereqere ruling? Grubsheet first reported the appeal on Monday August 17, three days before the interview aired. So Clarke was fully aware that the Tuiqereqere judgment was being revisited.
- And why has he kept secret his approach to the Prime Minister asking him to remove Salesi Temo as Chief Justice (acting or substantial) because he was unfit for the job?
Temo is still unfit for the job of presiding over the judiciary and stands accused by the CoI of perjury and perverting and obstructing the course of justice.
Wylie Clarke stands accused by the CoI of potentially being part of a conspiracy to obstruct and pervert the course of justice.
Nothing is now “null and void” when a panel of Court of Appeal judges is poised to hear an appeal about Tuiqereqere’s judgment. As Grubsheet has said before, it isn’t over until the appeal judges sing. And if Wylie Clarke doesn’t know it, he should. Which makes him unfit to be President of the Fiji Law Society and he should resign.
Leaving aside the issues I have raised, compare the tenor of Vijay Narayan’s treatment of Wylie Clarke with his treatment of Justice Ashton Lewis.
Even the Youtube promo shot portrays the Judge in an unflattering light.
The Fijian mainstream media is the pits.
More Grubsheet stories on Wylie Clarke:
For more stories featuring Wylie Clarke, just type his name into the Grubsheet search engine.
NOTE TO READERS:
I apologise for the delay in covering this story but it was only after the interview with Justice Ashton-Lewis that the Wylie Clarke interview had fresh resonance.
The contrast in looks alone between Wylie and Justice Ashton speaks volumes; shifty and the other tired of the whole saga!!!
Watched Justice Ashton interview, he knows his stuff and is so distinguished…. Each question made me cringe though…
Won’t give Wylie interview my time, I’d seethe, n waste my emo… Tom Bowers book is better use of my time😂..
GD
Let’s start the campaign to identify all Liumuri in Fiji at all levels.
Most of them are in coat and tie and come in media to lecture about transparency and accountability.
It’s time to name and shame each of them in this campaign.
If we don’t, the cancer will continue to spread.
These people have no shame and honor.
It’s time for people of Fiji to know.
Your platform is the most credible and let’s begin the anti liumuri campaign by identifying crocodiles 🐊 in pond.
Tighten your diapers, as only real men wear underwear. We don’t have that kind of man much left in Fiji now.
The name that all paths seem to lead to is Nagin. He was named as reporting Pryde talking to ASK. He is Rabuka’s lawyer and he is reported as the person at dinner with Wylie and Ashton Lewis. He is also the person who seems to be providing advice and popping up from time to time in court. What’s his role? Perhaps finding out would connect a lot of dots?
I understand Hemendra Nagin is David Ashton-Lewis’s lawyer in Fiji.
The contrast between the two interviews couldn’t be clearer. Vijay Narayan was a tiger with Ashton-Lewis and a fawn with Clarke. He was literally fawning over Clarke. Starstruck, it seems.
A pathetic journalist to say the least. His bias was so evident. I understand Vijay is a veteran journalist with decades of experience and considered a leading light in the industry. If he is considered a star journalist, I shudder to think what the rest of the media industry must be like!
After watching that cringe worthy performance by both of them all I can say is WOW!
That should be required viewing for anyone who is wanting to see what a guilty person behaves like when trying to appear as a wronged individual whilst being spoon-fed material to comment on.
Clarke must truly regret doing that interview when watching it after he did it. If anyone thought he was innocent before seeing that, I’m sure they won’t now.
I think his heart beat rose to danger levels trying to temper his responses into something he thought was believable during that ordeal.
He will probably suffer a cardiac event if he has to stand up in court after the appeal finds that there is a case for him to answer, after all.
His first act should be to resign from his role in the Law Society and leave the country, while he still can.