A former Fiji Rugby Union executive and longtime journalist believes the country’s anti-corruption agency is “not fit for purpose”.
Charlie Charters, a British-Fijian national, made the comments after the Fiji High Court in Suva permanently stayed the criminal proceedings against him a fortnight ago.
In March, the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) charged Charters with two counts of aiding and abetting an unidentified whistleblower to unlawfully disclose official information about the organisation.
However, the Fiji High Court, on 24 July, dismissed the charges, ruling that FICAC violated his constitutional rights and abused the court process.
In his ruling, Justice Pita Bulamainaivalu found that Charters’ “right under Section 13 of the Constitution 2013 was violated by FICAC”, adding that his “right to freedom of speech, expression, thought, opinion and publication under Section 17 of the Constitution 2013 including not to divulge the sources of his journalistic information was violated by FICAC”.
Charters said the ruling was a victory for him and everyone who believed in justice.
He said Fiji needed to take “a long hard look at how it wants to fight corruption”.
He added that if successful corruption prosecutions were the yardstick of success then “FICAC is not fit for purpose”.
“I was grateful that the High Court decision sent as loud and crystal-clear a message as it did in the ruling but it should not have come to this and that FICAC broke very basic prosecution rules,” he said.
“Everyone came to understand that this was how FICAC operated under Bainimarama (former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama), a way to take out regime enemies or political opponents.
FICAC is Fiji’ anti-corruption agency.
ABC/Supplied
He said that was why Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka campaigned in 2022 to close FICAC and fold its resources into the police.
“But FICAC has continued to operate in the same fashion today – tying up government opponents in ultimately unsuccessful prosecutions like myself,” the 57-year-old said.
“If the same outcome happens with the cases against Manoa Kamikamica and Professor Biman Prasad (former deputy prime ministers), every citizen should be outraged that literally nothing has changed between the Bainimarama and Rabuka governments.
“It’s like Bainimarama created the weapon, the Rabuka government told everyone they would get rid of the weapon. But when they got into office, Rabuka’s government found the weapon was actually quite useful.
“You could just imagine someone saying, ‘Maybe, we will use the weapon a little bit ourselves’.”
Both Kamikamica and Prasad currently have cases against FICAC.
Charters was represented by lawyers Juleen Fatiaki and Seforan Fatiaki, while Justice Bulamainaivalu had granted FICAC 30 days to appeal to the Fiji Court of Appeal.
FICAC has not issued any public statement following the ruling in Charters’ favour.
