In courtrooms across Fiji, children are often the silent centre of the most consequential decisions of their lives. Family disputes, child-protection proceedings, juvenile justice matters, adoption applications and cases involving domestic violence or sexual abuse all turn on what is best for the child. Yet the child’s own views, experiences and sense of safety are routinely filtered through adults, parents, social workers, lawyers and judges, who, however well-intentioned, cannot fully speak for them. The gap between what the law promises children and what it delivers is wide, and in many Pacific jurisdictions it is widening.
This year’s Fiji Law Society Convention confronts that gap head-on. On Friday, 30 October 2026, Session 4, “The Voice of the Child: Social Issues and Reforms Needed – A Lawyer’s Perspective” will examine how the legal profession can give children a genuine, structured place in the processes that shape their futures. The discussion will not stop at diagnosis. It will map practical reforms that lawyers themselves can drive clearer statutory pathways for child participation, better training for counsel representing children, stronger coordination between the courts, Legal Aid and the Department of Children, and procedural tools that make a child’s voice both audible and influential without placing the child under undue pressure.
The panel brings together complementary expertise that few local forums can match. Seruwaia Nayacalevu, Partner at Shekinah Law, brings front-line experience of family and child-protection litigation in Fiji’s courts. Tania Wolff, President of the Law Council of Australia, offers comparative insight from a jurisdiction that has spent two decades refining child-inclusive practices and national frameworks for children’s legal representation. Sokoveti Daunivesi, Head of Family at the Legal Aid Commission of Fiji, understands the daily realities of under-resourced public legal services and the practical barriers that prevent many children from being heard. Ela Tukutukulevu, Director of the Department of Children within the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection, provides the policy and administrative perspective essential for translating courtroom lessons into systemic change. Moderating the conversation is Mele Rakai, Partner at Sherani Lawyers, who will keep the discussion tightly focused on actionable outcomes for Fiji’s practitioners.
The Convention’s wider theme, Reforming for Resilience: Advancing Legal Reforms & Professional Excellence, finds one of its clearest expressions here. A legal profession that systematically centres the child’s voice does more than fulfil a rights obligation; it strengthens the legitimacy of every order the courts make. When children feel heard, compliance rises, re-litigation falls, and communities begin to trust that the justice system truly serves its most vulnerable members. Lawyers are uniquely placed to close the gap: they draft the pleadings, appear in the chambers and or hearings, train the next generation of counsel, and advise the reformers who rewrite the rules. By treating child participation not as an optional courtesy but as a professional standard, Fiji’s lawyers can turn a long-standing aspiration into everyday practice.
The session will feed directly into the Law Society’s ongoing engagement with government on family law and child-protection reform. For the public, the message is straightforward and hopeful: the people who stand in court every day are preparing themselves to listen better, advocate more effectively, and ensure that the next generation of Fijian children does not remain silent at the very moment their lives are being decided.
