Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Fiji solicitor says Fiji’s judiciary needs a proper legal basis

Posted at 22:20 on 24 April, 2009 UTC

A Fiji solicitor says the county’s judiciary needs a proper legal basis before it is reinstated.

Members of the interim regime have indicated appointments could be made to the High and Supreme court early next week, after the judiciary was sacked when the President abrogated the constitution.

A past president of the Fiji Law Society, Graham Leung says the judiciary needs a constitutional basis, and as far as he is concerned the 1997 constitution is very much alive.

“Anybody can set up a judiciary but then if it looks like a judiciary and it sounds like a judiciary but it doesen’t have legitimate lawful basis then then the whole process I’m afraid is tainted and the credibility of that process or system would be called in serious question”

Graham Leung - a solicitor in Fiji.