THE death of Sir Timoci Tuivaga last December marked a remarkable chapter in the Fijian legal history, says former Fiji Law Society president Graham Leung.
He said by the time of his passing, “Sir Tim” lived in well-deserved retirement for more than a decade.
“A whole generation of lawyers only know the public persona from his legal pronouncements and judgments,” Mr Leung said.
He said “cutting his teeth as a native magistrate”, Mr Tuivaga went on to join the Office of the Director for Public Prosecutions where he served with such luminaries as Ghananand Mishra and Jai Ram Reddy.
“His legal acumen was readily appreciated and elevation to the bench followed where he joined both Judge Mishra and Sir Moti Tikaram, two colleagues who were also lifelong friends.”
Recalling the days when he was knighted and the controversy that followed it, Mr Leung said he was appointed as a pioneer local Chief Justice.
“The then-Governor General, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, preferred him over Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara’s nomination of Sir Ronald Kermode, and Opposition Leader Reddy’s choice of Judge Mishra. Sir Tim’s legal abilities, his collegiality approachability and unimpeachable integrity soon put to bed any doubts about his claims to the position.”
He added in 1987, Sir Tim defied the efforts of the Royal Fiji Military Forces to stage the country’s first coup.
“It was ultimately doomed, but Sir Tim demonstrated his unswerving commitment to and belief in the rule of law. It was that quality tempered by an intensely pragmatic turn of mind that prompted interim Prime Minister Mara to invite Sir Tim out of retirement to restore the Fijian judiciary in late 1987.”
Mr Leung said being a “former prosecutor with a keen forensic ability, Sir Tim was scrupulous in ensuring the criminal justice system functioned fairly and often decried what he felt was a tendency by the police to obtain convictions through confessions”.
He would be remembered for the case of the Ka Levu where he awarded the title to Bulou Eta Vosailagi over her nephew Ratu Sakiusa Makutu, reversing a Native Lands Commission decision.
“For Sir Tim, it was a straightforward matter of the latter not being accorded natural justice.”
He said Sir Timoci retired as he basked in the love of his family and relished his role as patriarch.
