“A DISGRACEFUL interference with Fiji politics’ is how Professor Jon Fraenkel has described the conduct of Judge David Ashton-Lewis.
A Professor in Comparative Politics at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Prof Fraenkel said the report was politically driven.
“Judge David Ashton-Lewis has discredited his entire report by making clear that it was politically motivated,” he said.
“He has said he was appointed to hunt out the ‘crocodiles in the pond’. He has made clear he wants to destroy Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica’s ambitions to one day become Prime Minister.
“That is a disgraceful interference with Fiji politics, so the whole exercise comes at an enormous financial and political cost for Fiji.”
Prof Fraenkel said any efforts to clean up the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) would “run into trouble”.
“The COI report adopts a scattergun approach detailing all possible charges it can find, whether plausible or not.
“I’m not a lawyer, but most of these will not stick in court, and are unlikely even to be referred by the police to the DPP.
“Yes (it comes at a cost), not least because the police have said that they will conduct their own separate investigations and not rely on the COI.”
Prof Fraenkel said FICAC was thoroughly corrupt and needed reconfiguration.
“The COI report regards that effort in itself as an offence. For example, the allegations vs Siromi Turaga are for his role in ‘orchestrating the call for a new FICAC Commissioner’ (p419).
“But that had to be done. What ensued sounds to me like a bitter office struggle, and oddly the judge seems to take sides with the acting FICAC commissioner – he sees this as an attempted cover-up.
“I think he is wrong. It was a failed attempt to clean up FICAC.”
Prof Fraenkel said during the FijiFirst years, trivial offences were used as tools to secure personal compliance, including tax returns.
“Politicians regularly had to negotiate with the Supervisor of Elections or FICAC to ward off politically motivated allegations. The COI report includes allegations against politicians for doing precisely this.”
Prof Fraenkel said he personally knew of several politicians who felt they had no option but to make representations to seek to have charges lifted. “The COI calls this ‘perverting the course of justice’,” he said.
