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Fiji High Court shaves off Speight from the scene

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November 16, 2000 

Fiji (UNB/AP) - A Fiji High Court judge ruled Wednesday that the country's 1997 constitution, scrapped by the military after a May 19 coup, remains in force.

Sitting in the High Court in the western Fiji sugar town of Lautoka amid tight security, Justice Tony Gates ruled that the military-installed interim government that has run Fiji since the coup has no constitutional foundation.

Interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said his government would remain in power and appeal the ruling.

Qarase reaffirmed "unreserved loyalty and full support" to Ratu Josefa Iloilo, a Fijian chief appointed president following the coup.

Gates suggested a government of national unity could be the best way forward for Fiji, but he also said Fiji's pre-coup House of Representatives and Senate remained legally in tact, a comment deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry apparently interpreted as effectively ordering him restored to power.

A smiling Chaudhry told Fijian television he welcomed the ruling.

Chaudhry said his toppled coalition "urges the authorities to abide by the high court ruling and to recall parliament so that Fiji is back to democratic rule."

The Fijian army's director of legal services, Lt. Col. Etueri Caucau, said the army also would challenge the ruling in the Fiji Court of Appeal, a body composed of foreign judges.

Qarase announced earlier Wednesday that elections for a new parliament had been brought forward by three months to March 2002.

The lengthy appeals process is unlikely to be completed before that election, meaning the court ruling may have virtually no effect.

On May 19, failed businessman George Speight led a group of gunmen into parliament and took hostage Chaudhry and members of his Labor-led coalition.

The coup came a year after Chaudhry's victory in a democratic general election, the first under the 1997 constitution.

Chaudhry was the first prime minister from Fiji's ethnic Indian minority and Speight said his coup was aimed at restoring power to indigenous Fijians.

"This decision offers a glimmer of hope - I wouldn't put it any higher than that," said Dr. George Williams, a constitutional lawyer based at the Australian National University.

"We see it as a win for the rule of law and for democracy in Fiji."

New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff agreed.

"Justice Gates' decision provides the opportunity now to make progress, if key players including the interim government and the military are prepared to take it up," Goff said.

"For security and stability to be restored, there must be the acceptance of sorting out difficulties by democratic process, not the use of violence."

Speight released the last of his hostages after a 56-day standoff and Qarase's government has since guaranteed only indigenous Fijians will be allowed to hold the nation's top political jobs in the future.

In his ruling, that came in response to a complaint from an ethnic Indian farmer that he had been forced to flee his home as a result of the coup, Gates suggested a government of national unity might be the best war forward for Fiji.

The ruling by British-born Gates is the first major judicial decision against Qarase's regime, which was set up by the army in July on the order of Fijian tribal chiefs and charged with restoring democratic rule in 2002.

Speight and his key supporters were arrested after the standoff and are in custody awaiting trial, likely next year, on treason charges that carry the death penalty.