Yellow Ribbon Campaign (Fiji) - The Fiji Law Society

The Fiji Law Society

On 21 May, Fiji Law Society president Graeme Leung spoke out against the bill, which he said would empower politicians to overturn judicial decisions. Leung said that he and the Law Society supported the idea of reconciliation, tolerance, and unity, but were strongly opposed to pardoning perpetrators of the coup. The amnesty provisions of the legislation were, he said, "repugnant" and would hamstring the courts. "It's likely to demoralise the judiciary and sap it of the will to continue its work." It would also encourage future generations to regard coups as something they could take part in with impunity.

While opposing the legislation, however, he cautioned the military to show restraint, saying that Parliament had the constitutional right to pass laws, whether good or bad, and that it was up to the people to punish politicians for bad laws at election time. "If the law is bad and unpopular, it is for the people through the ballot box, to show their displeasure. But in a democracy, it is not the business of the military, however well-intentioned, to interfere with the law-making process."

In a further hard-hitting letter to Prime Minister Qarase, Leung said on 23 May that the bill was "not the answer to Fiji's problems," and would not achieve its purpose of reconciling Fiji's communities. Its provisions for amnesty and compensation of victims, he said, favoured the rich over the poor. He warned the government against assuming the support of a majority of the public. As Fijian culture did not encourage outspokenness, Leung said, it would be a mistake to interpret silence as support. "It's the way we are – our people show their respect to their leaders by keeping quiet. It is considered rude to speak your mind," he told the Prime Minister. (Attorney General Qoriniasi Bale countered this the next day by saying that equally, the silence of the population should not be interpreted as meaning that they opposed the legislation).

In a parliamentary submission on 16 June, Leung called the bill a recipe for instability, terror and payback, and a retrograde step, which could threaten present and future governments. "It would encourage the belief that if people think they have sufficiently good political reason to topple a government, politicians might consider granting them a pardon," Leung said. He expressed content that the decisions of the Commission and Amnesty Committee would not be required to state any reasons for their decisions, which would not be subject to appeal. He said it was "abhorrent and unacceptable" to create what amounted to retrospective legalization of a terrorist act.

On 3 July, Leung said that if the bill became law with its amnesty provisions intact, the Law Society would challenge it in the courts. He said that he had tried to schedule an appointment with the Prime Minister to discuss the whole matter, but that more than a week later, he had received no reply.

Leung said on 4 July that he was seeing an audience with the Attorney-General to try to persuade him to rewrite the bill after Military Commander Frank Bainimarama called it "ethnic cleansing." Calling ethnic cleansing a horrific idea, Leung said that every right thinking person would be alarmed that the debate had risen to that level, and that there was an urgent to hold talks to resolve the standoff.

On 2 August, Leung expressed disappointment, but not surprise, that the Great Council of Chiefs had decided on 27 July to support the bill. The Society would continue to look at a legal challenge to it, he said. Leung's latest comments drew a sharp response the next day from Cabinet Minister and Leader of the House Jonetani Kaukimoce, who said that he would have expected the Law Society, as the representative body of the legal profession, to behave in a more appropriate and dignified manner.