Chief Justice of Fiji

According to Chapter 5 of the 2013 Constitution, the chief justice sits on the High Court (Section 100) and presides over the Supreme Court (Section 98), but is barred from membership of the Court of Appeal. This stipulation is designed to give the Appeal Court a measure of independence from the other two courts. The chief justice also chairs the Judicial Service Commission (Section 104(a)).

According to the 2013 Constitution, the chief justice is also the first in the order of succession to discharge the duties of the president of Fiji as acting president should the president be unable to discharge her or his office or if the office becomes vacant for any reason. In other words, the Chief Justice is an ex-officio Vice President of Fiji with a dormant commission which is invoked for the aforementioned reasons. The 2013 Constitution also stipulates that in the absence of the chief justice, the next senior most substantive judge performs the duties of the president as acting president.

Before 1871, when Seru Epenisa Cakobau established the first unified Kingdom of Viti under his authority, what is now Fiji was a patchwork of warring fiefdoms. Forming a government dominated by foreigners, Cakobau appointed Sir Charles St Julian, an Australian newspaper editor, as the first chief justice in 1872. St Julian died in office a few weeks after Cakobau ceded Fiji to the United Kingdom on 10 October 1874, under the provisions of the Pacific Islanders Protection Acts of 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 19) and 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 51),^[3][4] (amended in 1875),^[5] (long title: An Act for the Prevention and Punishment of Criminal Outrages upon Natives of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean) which sought to bring the rule of law to British subjects who were using unconventional methods to supply labour for the European-run cotton plantations in Fiji. St. Julian was followed as Chief Justice in 1875 by Sir William Hackett.

From 1877 through 1961, the chief justice of Fiji was ex officio chief justice of the High Commissioner's Court, more commonly known as the chief judicial commissioner for the Western Pacific, the chief judicial officer throughout the British Western Pacific Territories, a supra-colonial entity established by the Western Pacific Orders-in-Council 1877 (amended in 1879 and 1880), and by the Pacific Order-in-Council 1893.^{[note 1]} Appeals lay to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. From 1942 to 1945 the High Commission was suspended by military administration during the War in the Pacific. Headed by a high commissioner for the Western Pacific, who was also ex officio the governor of Fiji, until the end of 1952, it included numerous islands, mostly small, throughout Oceania. Composition varied over time, but Fiji (1877-1952) and the Solomon Islands (1893-1976) were its most durable members.

From the beginning of 1953, Fiji and Tonga were separated from the High Commission as a prelude to full independence, and the High Commission offices were transferred to Honiara on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The office of high commissioner was separated from that of the governor of Fiji and was now held by the governor of the Solomon Islands). The High Commissioner's Court, however, continued to sit in Suva, and the chief justice of Fiji remained the chief judicial commissioner of the Western Pacific until 1962.

From 1962 onwards, functions of the High Commissioner's Court began to be transferred to the increasingly independent island states under the provisions of Western Pacific (Courts) Order in Council, 1961.^[6] The judicial commissioner for the Western Pacific became the chief justice of the High Court of the Western Pacific, and removed from Fiji to join the rest of the British High Commission in the Solomon Islands. The position was separated from that of the chief justice of Fiji.^[7]

Fiji gained independence on 10 October 1970 as the Dominion of Fiji. Although no longer connected with the British High Commission, the position of chief justice of Fiji continued to be filled by judges from Britain, Australia and New Zealand until the appointment of Sir Timoci Tuivaga in 1980.

The constitutional arrangements relating to the chief justice were temporarily overturned in 2000, following a counter-coup by Commodore Frank Bainimarama to neutralize a civilian coup d'état instigated by George Speight. The then-chief justice, Sir Timoci Tuivaga, recognized the Interim Military Government that took office and abrogated the Constitution on 29 May, and drafted the controversial Administration of Justice Decree that was immediately promulgated by the military administration. This decree abolished the Supreme Court, made the chief justice head of the Appeal Court, and raised the retirement age of the chief justice from 70 years to 75. These changes were reversed following a decision of the High Court to reinstate the Constitution on 15 November 2000, a decision upheld by the Appeal Court on 1 March 2001.

Salesi Temo is the current acting Chief Justice of Fiji.

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Biles, John (1996). "Western Pacific Territories". In Olson, James Stuart; Shadle, Robert (eds.). Historical Dictionary of the British Empire, Volume 2. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 1156–7. ISBN 9780313293672.

• Brereton, Bridget (1997). Law, Justice and Empire: The Colonial Career of John Gorrie 1829-1892. University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 9789766400354.

• Care, Jennifer Corrin; Paterson, Donald Edgar (2007). Introduction to South Pacific Law (revised, 2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781845680398.

• Daley, Kevin (1996), Communalism and the challenge of Fijian unity (PDF) (D. Phil. dissertation)

• Lal, Brij V.; Fortune, Kate (2000). The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824822651.

• Lavaka, Penny (1981). "The Tonga Ma'a Tonga Kautaha: a watershed in British-Tongan relations". Pacific Studies. 4 (2, Spring 1981). Institute for Polynesian Studies. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.

• Library Resources for Pacific History, University of Auckland Library
• Duff, Peter (1997) The evolution of trial by judge and assessors in Fiji^{[permanent dead link]} Care, Jennifer Corrin (ed.) Journal of Pacific Studies Volume 21: Sources of Law in the South Pacific.
• Handley, K.R. (2001) The constitutional crisis in Fiji^{[permanent dead link]}. The Australian Law Journal, Volume 75, November 2001, pp. 688–693.