Government
Another Shaky Bridge to Cross
Will Fiji’s Interim Leaders Accept Appeal Court Ruling?
In February, Fiji will be presented with yet another shaky bridge to cross as a sequel to the May 19 crisis last year in which indigenous Fijian nationalists and opportunists violently overthrew the government of Mahendra Chaudhry, the country’s first Indian prime minister.
The Fiji Court of Appeal, composed of at least three and possibly five senior foreign judges, is expected to deal with an appeal by the post-coup interim government against a judgment delivered in November by High Court Judge Anthony Gates, a Briton.
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Responding to a petition from Chandrika Prasad, a farmer, who said the May coup had harmed his constitutional rights, Gates ruled that the 1997 constitution, declared on May 29 by the military to have been abrogated by it, remained Fiji’s supreme law. In that case, Gates declared, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, said by the military to have agreed to "step aside" along with the purportedly dumped constitution, was still president.
Mara thus had the duty of choosing from parliamentarians elected in May 1999 someone he felt as prime minister could form a government. It would be a good idea to form a government of national unity composed of parliamentarians of all political opinions to clear up the mess caused by the coup, the judge suggested. The Gates’ judgment was coldly received by Laisenia Qarase, prime minister of an interim government appointed with the approval of Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs and the military in July.
Qarase said the judgment would be respected by the regime, but contested in the Court of Appeal. Qarase said the regime would remain loyal to Ratu Josefa Iloilo, appointed by the Great Council of Chiefs as Mara’s successor, but according to the Gates ruling appointed illegally. Qarase insisted that the 1997 constitution, unanimously approved by the main indigenous Fijian and Indian political parties to succeed an indigenous Fijian supremacist document imposed after a military coup in 1987 against a new indigenous Fijian-led but Indian dominated elected government, was unacceptable to indigenous Fijians.
Qarase’s government is determined that a constitutional reform commission, according to Gates also illegal, will continue with working on a constitution structured to keep the Indians, who are about 43 percent of the 830,000 population, and for that matter all other non-Fijian citizens, from ever again winning political power, as Chaudhry briefly did in 1999. Qarase and also significantly the 3,500-man military, which is the ultimate power behind the scenes, have said they will respect the Court of Appeal’s decision.
But the mystery is what the interim government and military will actually do if, as is widely expected by the country’s legal community and most other local observers, the Appeals Court of senior Australian, New Zealand and other foreign judges upholds Judge Gates’ ruling. There is speculation that Qarase and his cabinet of indigenous Fijian and part indigenous Fijian ministers might ignore the endorsement of the Gates decision and press on with imposing a constitution written to ensure indigenous Fijian political supremacy, with an election planned for March 2002.
If that happened Fiji would be hit with devastating international trade, aid and political sanctions, imposed by democracy-minded governments, notably those of Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States. These would cause economic harm the country could not bear. The response of the military and Great Council of Chiefs is also in doubt. The military is far more important. It was praised by Gates in acting as it did in forming a brief military regime for the purpose of negotiating the freeing, unharmed, of Chaudhry and his government, held hostage by the coup’s civilian leader, George Speight, in Parliament house for 56 days. After the immediate hostage crisis was over the military should have restored power to a civilian government appointed under the 1997 constitution, Gates said.
Should Qarase’s government reject a Court of Appeal ruling in support of Gates, then Law Society members expect that most if not all the country’s remaining judges would resign, leading to disastrous repercussions.
Statements from the military, mauled internally in November by an attempted mutiny by about 40 soldiers hoping apparently to replace Qarase’s government with one composed of Speight’s supporters, suggest that it might not necessarily support Qarase in defying the appeal court. Some senior military men spoke privately in support of regaining international respectability for the military, as well as Fiji.
