THE following is the full transcript of the interview on May 29, 2025 between Radio 4CRB and Justice David Ashton-Lewis (DAL) on “The Judge”.
RADIO 4CRB: This morning Supreme Court judge, David Ashton-Lewis, this is a little bit of conjecture as to whether you were retired or not retired. Still held the post, but you’ve qualified that this morning.
DAL: I’m not retired. I still hold the post, and I am a Supreme Court judge on the Supreme Court of Fiji, and I will either renew at the end of … 2027 or else I will call it quits. I’m getting a bit old now, but they’ve asked me — I’ve said this before — would I sit until I’m 80, and I’m 80 on the 4th of March, 2030…? I have said, yes, I will, but I’ll review it again at the end of 2027.
RADIO 4CRB: Well, you’ve been away for a while, David, and a lot of questions have come through the switchboard and email and so forth. What have you been up to?
DAL: Well, give me some of the questions.
RADIO 4CRB: The questions are, where is he? When is he coming back? What’s he up to? What’s so important that he can’t come and speak to us?
DAL: Well, okay, now as a Supreme Court judge, the Supreme Court of Fiji is like the High Court of Australia, is like the Supreme Court of Canada, United States, New Zealand — it doesn’t sit all the time. There are three sittings of the Supreme Court in Fiji. And that is April, June, August and October. And of course, there’s no trial aspect in the Supreme Court. What the Supreme Court is, it hears appeals from the Court of Appeal, and it hears appeals that really relate to matters of interest to all of Fiji, and that might come from contract law, criminal law, property law, whatever, provided the question sought is and the decision that would come down would affect all of Fiji, then it gets heard. And because there’s no appeal from the Supreme Court, you really have to get it as right as you can. There’s usually three to five judges sitting at any one time on the Supreme Court, and the only way you can really change, is like for the legal people listening out there, is change anything from the High Court of Australia.
It really takes 20, 25, maybe 15 years for circumstances in the community to change so that a current Supreme Court could say, look, that decision 20 years ago of the Supreme Court was right, but circumstances, society, morals, culture, everything has since changed, so then a later Supreme Court can change or overrule if it needs to a former but there’s no other way that a decision of the Supreme Court can be changed, whereas in the High Court, or the Supreme Court, as it’s called here in Australia.
So what is called the Supreme Court in Fiji is the same as Canada, US all other countries. We call our final court the High Court. And I think the reason why we did it was when, when we came together as a Commonwealth, the final courts in the Australian colonies was the Supreme Court.
Now no one put pressure on them to change their name to the High Court. And thus, though the High Court of Australia became the Supreme Court, so we have this reverse name, but in Fiji, it’s like all the other countries. The High Court is one judge sitting alone, hearing trials and hearing matters. Then the next court is the Court of Appeal, three judges which will either order a retrial, or they will look at the evidence. They won’t hear the matter again. They’ll either overturn it, confirm it, or order that it goes back to the High Court, to trial.
And then ultimately, you have the Supreme Court. It doesn’t order retrials. It doesn’t… it makes a decision on the matter usually that has come from the Court of Appeal.
So I’m a judge on that court. I was a judge 30 years ago on the High Court, but I’m being honoured enough to be asked now to sit on the Supreme Court.
Now, although it’s Fiji, the level of law in Fiji is, is sophisticated. I mean, …it is as good as you’d find in Australia, and because the British made sure it was, but so that’s really that. Now, I’m on that court, but I was asked to go over, originally, for six weeks in November last year, to sit on a royal commission.
Now because Fiji does not have the monarch anymore as head of State, it has a President. They are called presidential commissions. They are exactly the same as a royal commission.
So I was asked: Would I sit on a royal commission that was looking into the appointment of a woman into her office as head of the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption? That is a body that is established by the Fiji Constitution, and it virtually answers to nobody… It’s very powerful.
And it can, … if it finds things are made out, it can destroy a life. And so it mainly hears things like abuse of office, corruption, unlawful behaviour, such as money laundering, things like that.
Now a lot of international organised crime like to use the Pacific Islands micro states as places to launder their money, right? And so what happens … this commission looks into all that. Now this commission is highly political, and under the previous government, it was weaponised, and it was used by the then Attorney-General and the then Prime Minister to really destroy enemies.
Trumped-up charges would be laid and trumped-up decisions would be made. Now, when Sitiveni Rabuka came back into office two years ago, the pressure on him was clean up this body. Its shortened name is FICAC, Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption. Would you please clean it up and make it do its job properly?
Well, a woman was appointed to it who was universally seen as corrupt, and she was universally seen as someone who would protect high-ranking people and any complaints made against them would be closed or would be decided quickly, not on full evidence, and they would be found to have nothing to answer to.
So the pressure on the Prime Minister over the last two years was: could you please investigate this commission, and this woman, she is unsuitable for the job. She’s unqualified for the job by dint of her background, and no one trusts her. Well, no one other than those who wanted her to get in.
Now, those who wanted her to get in were — still are — senior members of the government who claim to be totally committed to the current regime, but they’ve had, five of them have had, terrible accusations made against them and complaints made to FICAC against them, and it’s been noticed that this woman is seemingly delaying them, has closed some and so there’s been a push to form a presidential commission to look into one, her appointment — was her appointment carried out with fairness, justice, in accordance with the rule of law, and integrity? That was the first term of reference to be investigated.
And then the second was, was there inordinate and improper influence by certain people, and meant in the government, in the Cabinet, to get her into the position, because they were aware that she would protect them.
So what happened was, the commission of inquiry is not like a trial, so it has a Supreme Court judge sitting on it, but he has wide powers of investigation, and he can … arrest, he can subpoena people to come to court. If they don’t come to court, he can deal with them for contempt. But he’s not bound by the strict rules when he’s sitting on the Supreme Court.
So he has all the powers of a Supreme Court judge, but more. And one of the major powers that I had as the Commissioner, I could accept hearsay evidence. Now in a normal court situation, you cannot accept hearsay. I could accept hearsay on hearsay, and I regulated the proceedings so I didn’t have to follow any Supreme Court rules.
There are no Commission of Inquiry rules under the Fiji Commission of Inquiry Act, because it is always left to the Commissioner, the judge, to set the rules of procedure.
The only thing that a Commissioner of Inquiry must observe are the principles of natural justice — that is, any person who is called to appear, or any person who is under investigation has a right to be heard, usually by counsel, they can appoint counsel; has a right to cross examine any evidence that is damaging to them, and so that principles of natural justice in that mean procedural fairness, that you’ve been procedurally fair.
Now, when I went there, there were five witnesses to be heard. And what happens is, you start off with getting affidavits from all the people who are important that the commissioner says, I want to hear you. So you get affidavits from them, and then the commissioner and you have a person, people, if they follow this type of things that we have in Australia, will hear counsel assisting the commission.
Now, usually counsel assisting a royal commission is a King’s Counsel. I had a King’s Counsel from New Zealand, and she was assisting me. She was 48, she stood about five foot, feet tall, but she was a pocket rocket. She was arguably one of the best barristers I’ve ever — in 50 years in the law — I’ve ever worked with. She was brilliant cross examiner.
And so anyway, we went from five witnesses as the investigation and we got affidavits turned out to being 35 witnesses. It was supposed to be completed by the 31st of December, six weeks. It wasn’t completed until the 2nd of May.
It took six months and nine weeks you go through the affidavits, and then you have the court hearings that are held in the Supreme Court, and I’m on a bench. Luckily, there’s no robes. And even if there are robes in the Supreme Court, it’s just an academic gown. Yes, on the High Court, there’s all the red and black robes and wigs and that, but not on the Court of Appeal, and not on the Supreme Court.
And so I regulated. So I said, No gowns at all. You just appear in suits and we’ll go like that. So we did. It took nine weeks of hearings in the Supreme Court, and then I had to write. I had a month to write, or three weeks, really to write a 681-page report, which I did, and I handed that report to the Prime Minister and the President on the 2nd of May. And being so long and not being legally trained, I said I will stay for another week and a half here to just answer any questions you may have.
So I’ve ultimately left and came back to Australia on the 11th of May. Now I still have phone hookups and audio-visual hookups.
And so I made 72 recommendations. What a commissioner does in a commission of inquiry — here’s all the evidence. He makes recommendations because it’s not a trial, it’s an investigation. And any evidence of a Commission of Inquiry cannot be used in a later, if it, if you bring out which I have bought out criminal acts, but it’s up to the Director of Public Prosecutions to get the police to reinvestigate those matters, and if satisfied, the Director of Public Prosecutions will lay indictments and then there’ll be a trial.
Now I found there were nine people who had done three, well had done things such as lied under oath. That’s called perjury. I found that nine of them obstructed the course of justice and that they also perverted the course of justice in the appointment of this particular woman. In other words, it became apparent in the investigation that this particular woman was shunted very quickly through the processes to get in. Now the question then arises, why was she so important? Well, the rest of the evidence shows she was so important because she would do evil people’s designs.
So now what’s happened is the Prime Minister is considering it. I have received word that he’s going to act on all my recommendations in relation to nine people, and that he will then — there’s a massive pushing for it now by members of the Opposition and everyone that the report be made public, because at the moment, only four people.
Now, I’m told it’s been leaked, and I’m sure it has, and I think I know where it’s been leaked from, so that people who are interested are trying to stop it, but they’re not going to be successful.
And what ostensibly, only myself, Counsel Assisting, the Prime Minister, the President, know what’s in the report. My recommendation has been: act on the recommendations first before you release it to the public.
And the reason being, we receive pretty good intelligence. That’s Counsel Assisting and myself that those who are named in it are going to seek to bring an injunction to stop it being released.
Now I don’t know how they’re going to do it, because lawyers listening to this, if Judge Clive Wall is listening, you can’t injunct the State. You can’t injunct the Head of State.
So to try to and this is only going to be released on the order of the President, yes, and he will act on the advice of the Prime Minister. And so you can’t injunct the President in Fiji. It’s just impossible.
So I don’t know what they’re going to try and do. And interestingly enough, if you went to those people, so what the Prime Minister on my advice has been act on the recommendations, then release it.
Because you’ve cut the ground from under them, it’s already gone out into the public of those people, those nine, what has happened to them? And then, then release it. Now I understand from his aids, that’s what he intends to do. So anyway, that’s what a Commission of Inquiry can bring up.
It can bring up some of the most bitter. I had a bodyguard, and my driver was about six-foot-eight. Looked like a front-row Fijian rugby player, and he was my driver for 24/7, he was on call, and he was my bodyguard. Now I didn’t have any problems at all with it.
So I’m now back in Australia, and I’ve done to put it in the colloquial way, the Prime Minister said to me, David, would you please reveal the crocodiles in the pond? And I did that.
RADIO 4CRB: Well, it sounds like, after the previous regime had been in power for a long period of time, that almost, I suppose, reading between the lines, and also reading some of the things I see on the internet — it was jobs for the boys?
DAL: Oh, it was, and it was jobs for the select few boys and I mentioned earlier, this body was set up under the previous regime, which was in power for eight years as a military government, and then eight years as a terrible parliamentary government, because it was the same people, they just didn’t wear uniforms, they wore suits and they had really weaponised this body to deal with their enemies.
RADIO 4CRB: So going forward, David, are you going to be going back? Are you back to stay? What’s your … What are your plans?
DAL: Well, ostensibly, because I’m on the Supreme Court, I only get called upon four times a year, and not even every one of those. There are two Australians on the Supreme Court, two New Zealanders, retired Supreme Court judges there on the Supreme Court, two British Court of Appeal retired judges on it. So, so that is six of us.
The Chief Justice, who is a Fijian, is always the President of the Supreme Court, but very rarely sits. So the Supreme Court of Fiji is made up — and there’s more. There’s a couple of more Australians, a couple more New Zealanders. So there’s probably a panel of 10 to 11 expatriate English, Australian, New Zealanders who are empanelled to sit on the Supreme Court.
So they, you don’t always go, you might end up sitting once, yes, in the in the four sittings. Okay, so … I’m open to go. I’m really in their in their call, and it’s always the Chief Justice who empanels the judges for the Supreme Court sittings. But out of this Commission of Inquiry, I believe there’s going to be a lot more inquiry work.
And I have had it quietly indicated to me that I will be asked to come back and do some of those. So I don’t know for sure, but I’m open to go back, and I’m open to stay here.
RADIO 4CRB: Nice, nice. So, David, it’s a lovely place. Most of us have either travelled there or viewed it on the Internet and had a look at how wonderful it is the political environment since the change of regime? How is it? How does the country feel?
DAL: The country feels okay because Sitiveni Rabuka, he conducted the first coup in 1987 and in 1991 he, of himself, knew that the coup was wrong, yes, and he sought to have parliamentary Constitutional government restored.
Now that’s how I ended up there in 1992 and I was the constitutional judge on the High Court. And so I went over there, and I was a judge there for five years, and I got to know Sitiveni Rabuka, and he was Prime Minister for seven years from 1992.
Now, there’s always going to be aggrieved people who think they can do it better. One of these people that I identified was someone who’s well, they all smile at his face and stab him in the back if they get the chance. And one of them is a wannabe Prime Minister.
And he thinks he should be. Well, if Sitiveni Rabuka acts, he’s never going to be Prime Minister, because I found disgraceful things that he was doing, yet smiling to the Prime Minister, I’m your greatest loyal man? Well, he wasn’t.
And in law, you’ve heard me say, none protest their innocence so loudly as the guilty. None protest their honourability so loudly as the dishonourable. Well, he fits into that category. So the current …for the last two years, and to undo the mess of 16 years, eight years of a military government, which was illegal. It was illegal from the day it took power … to the day it then let parliamentary elections run, and it was the same people became the parliament. They were as corrupt and as disgraceful as the military were. So to try to repair that in two years, it’s impossible.
And what I observed over there that 90 – 85 per cent of people are committed to the restoration of parliamentary government, the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, the Parliament and the executive, which is the President, because nothing becomes law until he signs it into law, like in our system.
So I do have good hope, and as long as Sitiveni Rabuka is leading it, and his enemies just claim the worst things about him, but the people who know him, yes, and there’s more of them, just dismiss this as people trying to destroy him. Well, no one I think can destroy him. The only person who can destroy him is himself, but he’s a total committer to the rule of law, the separation of powers and parliamentary government. So I have good hope for the country.
RADIO 4CRB: And look earlier, prior to this election, you mentioned to me, and we discussed that once there’s been a military coup, you are automated, automatically ejected from the Commonwealth. So they were a Commonwealth nation prior to that coup in 82, 84?
DAL: 87, 2000 and 2006 – three coups.
RADIO 4CRB: Would they consider … coming back into the commonwealth?
DAL: Yes, they would. And one of the questions, Rabuka is interested to look at, but he realised it’ll take a bit of time asking the people, would they like to bring back the monarchy? In other words, King Charles comes back as head of State, and instead of a president, you have a Governor General, which they had from 1970 up to 1987 it was always a Fijian was the Governor General.
RADIO 4CRB: Look, we’re getting close to the end of the program, and it’s a very interesting conversation to me too and we have it here with the Republicans wanting us, wanting Australia to become a Republican, those people who still want to remain part of the Commonwealth? I think that the question belongs, because we’ve always been part of the Commonwealth. What is the real difference here? And this is a good example or a case study, to say these guys were part of the Commonwealth. They’re now not part of the Commonwealth, but potentially they may very well want to be, but that again, and it would be a good conversation, maybe for one of our next show.
DAL: Yes, yes. More than happy, because republics are in the Commonwealth. I mean, Pakistan is a republic. It’s an Islamic Republic. It’s a member of the Commonwealth. Yes. So what I think there’s 56 or 52 nations are members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Some have jokingly said, well, we should let the Americans come into the, they’re a former colony. I think they resoundingly ejected them act … of war.
But, well, there was no Commonwealth there. But look, the United States could become if the if the majority of members of the Commonwealth said, yes, let’s accept them.
RADIO 4CRB: All right. Well, we’ll save that one up for the next show. Potentially, we’ll we’ll have a discussion after the show. Welcome back to the microphone, David and to the listeners out there. If you’ve got any suggestions for topics for this forum, we’d love to hear from you. … David, welcome back. Look forward to talking to you again next week.
DAL: Thank you, and thank you for having me back.
