Home

'Domica na nona tikina tabu': Fijileaks seeks answers over video alleged to show a Coalition Cabinet Minister performing cu**ilingus on a woman

11/10/2026

No Tears of Joy this time: Stanley Simpson alerts the Minister over the circulating video. Photograph: Simpson’s March 2023 “tears of joy” post about the proposed repeal of Fiji’s media law.

Fijileaks is actively pursuing the story surrounding the explicit video now circulating and has contacted the Minister concerned with questions and an opportunity to respond. We have copied our correspondence to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, the President and RFMF Commander Ro Jone Kalouniwai. While awaiting a response, we are examining the recording’s provenance and the claims accompanying it. We will update readers as further information is verified.
Our questions to the Minister are reproduced below.

Domica na nona tikina tabu (Sucking Her Private Parts)

Dear _________,

I am writing privately to seek your response concerning an intimate video circulating online, a copy sent to us anonymously, which has been attributed to you.

At this stage, Fijileaks intends to report on the matter without naming you. That remains my present intention whether or not you reply.

I am approaching you directly to establish the facts and give you an opportunity to correct any inaccurate information before publication.

The first and central question is straightforward: do you confirm or deny that you are the man depicted in the circulating video, indulging in what we call, domica na nona tikina tabu?

If you deny the identification, please say so expressly. If you contend that the footage is fabricated, manipulated or misleadingly presented, please explain the grounds.

Stanley Ian Simpson has publicly stated that his newsroom saw an explicit video on a minister’s Facebook page, or a page bearing a minister’s name, and alerted the minister’s office. He says it was removed after almost 30 minutes. His post describes it as apparently a private intimate act between consenting adults in a lawful relationship, but also calls the video “inconclusive”.

Against that background, please address the following:

Identity and authenticity: Are you the man depicted? Is the footage authentic, or do you dispute its authenticity or context?
Date and location: When and where was it recorded? An unverified account supplied to us places the recording in ________. Is that accurate?
Recording and consent: Who recorded it, and did you know and consent to being recorded? We have been told that your wife made the recording. Please confirm or correct that account.
Relationship: Was the other participant your wife? I am not asking you to name another private individual, but to clarify the basis for the public description of a lawful relationship.
Intoxication: An account supplied to us alleges that you were intoxicated at the time. What is your response?
Device and storage: On what device was the original recorded and stored? Was it a personal device, your wife’s device, a government-issued phone or another device? Was a cloud account involved?
Public resources: Were any government-issued devices, official accounts or other public resources used to record, store, transfer or upload it?
Facebook account: Did it appear on an account or page belonging to you or administered on your behalf? Or was the page merely using your name without authorisation?
Publication: How did it appear there? Was it directly uploaded, shared, tagged or otherwise displayed? Who was responsible, and was publication authorised by you?
Account access: Who had administrative access at the relevant time? If you allege unauthorised access, what evidence supports that explanation, and was it reported to Meta or the police?
Newsroom alert: Did Simpson’s newsroom contact your office? When was the alert received, who received it, and what action was taken?
Removal: Who removed the video, and when? Is the account that it remained visible for almost 30 minutes accurate?
Information supplied to the newsroom: What did you or your office tell Simpson’s team about identity, authenticity, consent and the participants’ relationship? Do you know what his description “inconclusive” referred to?
Investigation: Have you requested an investigation into how the recording reached the public domain? If so, when and by which authority?
Further comment: Is there any other information or correction you wish Fijileaks to consider before publication?

These questions distinguish the circumstances of a private recording from the circumstances of its public appearance. Consent to recording and consent to publication are separate matters.

If you consider any premise inaccurate, please identify it and provide your correction. Any legal objection will be considered alongside your substantive response.

I have not attached the intimate footage to this initial request. If you need to inspect the particular clip in order to answer, please let me know so that a private means of review can be arranged.

Please reply as soon as possible. If you require additional time, please tell me.

Your response will be represented fairly and consistently with my present intention not to identify you.

Regards,
Victor Lal
Founding Editor-in-Chief

ANOTHER EXPLICIT-VIDEO CONTROVERSY: WHAT LYNDA TABUYA AND VIJAY NARAYAN’S ‘STRAIGHT TALK’ LEFT UNANSWERED IN 2025

As Fijileaks examines another explicit-video controversy, I return to Lynda Tabuya for a particular reason. Her appearance on Vijay Narayan’s Straight Talk in August 2025 illustrates how questions about a recording’s origin and subsequent handling can become a public accusation against selected recipients, while the media’s own involvement receives considerably less attention.

I watched the Straight Talk interview with the distinct impression that Tabuya and Narayan were treating Alexandra Forwood and me as the real culprits. That is my assessment of the exchange. It deserves explanation, especially because I subsequently sought Narayan’s comments and received no reply.

The story begins before Straight Talk. On 24 December 2024, Fijivillage published a report carrying the names of Vijay Narayan and Mikaele Liga about Tabuya’s explicit video.

It reported that the organisation had questioned her ministerial office and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. It also recorded her refusal to speak to Fijivillage. This was reporting about the recording; the article expressly stated that Fijivillage would not circulate the video itself. That distinction matters.

Reporting a video’s existence and distributing the recording are separate acts. The same precision should apply to everyone involved.

In the email Tabuya circulated to other media on 24 December, which I retained, she criticised Fijivillage and Narayan’s handling of the story. Fijivillage was omitted from the recipients of that message. Months later, she appeared on Narayan’s Straight Talk.

Fijileaks: Naked Lies by Information Minister on Straight Talk

In the annals of political theatre, yesterday’s episode of Straight Talk (13 August 2025) deserves its own category: “Scenes You Couldn’t Make Up Unless You Were Drunk or Desperate.”

There sat Lynda Tabuya, Coalition government minister and full-time martyr-in-her-own-mind, wagging her finger at two supposedly dastardly culprits who “released” her nude video. Among the accused? Yours truly, and Alex Forwood.

And who was sitting opposite her, nodding sympathetically? None other than Vijay Narayan, the first journalist to break the nude video story to Fiji and the wider Facebook public. That’s right, the actual midwife of the scandal, the man who cut the ribbon on the public viewing, the one who pressed “Post” before anyone else had even warmed up their gossip muscles.

Did Lynda mention this? No. Did Vijay? Not unless his raised eyebrows were meant as Morse code. Instead, the segment rolled on like a badly scripted soap opera: she accused, he “tsk-tsked”, and Fiji’s collective intelligence took another beating.

This wasn’t Straight Talk. It was Crooked Memory.

The sheer gall is breathtaking. Here’s a Minister who has lectured the media on ethics, who has issued solemn calls for “balanced reporting”, now peddling conspiracy theories that would make a flat-earther blush, while sitting across from the very person who actually lit the fuse.

If irony were a renewable energy source, this interview could power Suva for a month.

The truth? The real “original leak” about the existence of the naked video wasn’t from me, wasn’t from the other phantom culprit, but from the man nodding along in the interview chair who broke the story of the video's existence. That’s not an allegation; it’s a timestamped fact.

But facts don’t matter in Naked Lies: The Ministerial Edition. What matters is performance, preferably one where you cry victim, ignore the actual history, and hope the public can’t scroll far enough back on Facebook to see who really posted it first.

On Christmas Eve 2024, Lynda Tabuya circulated an extraordinary email to Fiji’s media, extraordinary not for its legal weight but for its breathtaking hypocrisy. In it, she accused Fijivillage of unethical reporting, claimed they had lied about speaking to her before breaking her nude video scandal, and singled out its News Director, Vijay Narayan, for a personal ethics lecture.

The Minister painted herself as both victim and media critic, scolding Narayan about truth, balance, and the harm of sensationalism. She even called on the Fiji Media Council to hold its members to account, while vowing to work with authorities to identify and prosecute those circulating the video under the Online Safety Act.

But here’s the kicker: she didn’t send that email to Fijivillage, the very outlet she was publicly accusing. They were excluded from her “media circulation list”, ensuring Narayan wouldn’t have a chance to respond.

Fast forward to now, and Tabuya is happily seated across from the same Vijay Narayan on his Straight Talk show, accusing others of leaking the video while Narayan nods along like none of this ever happened.

If political hypocrisy were an Olympic sport, this performance would have clinched her the gold medal.

Vijay Narayan’s part in this saga is no less remarkable. Any self-respecting journalist who had been publicly snubbed for comments, and then excluded from the official circulation list, might reasonably demand an apology before offering the Minister prime airtime. But not Narayan. Instead, he welcomed her onto Straight Talk, played the role of friendly host, and let her repeat a baseless accusation that someone else was behind the leak of her nude video, when, in fact, he was the first journalist to break the story.

What we saw wasn’t journalism. It was reputational laundering, a staged conversation in which both parties pretended December’s email never existed. Narayan got the exclusive, Tabuya got the platform, and the public got theatre instead of truth.

If Tabuya’s hypocrisy earned her a gold medal, Narayan’s willingness to play along without disclosing his own starring role in the video’s news debut surely deserves the silver.

NOTE: I received the video while abroad on 23 December 2024. I did not upload it for public viewing. My Fijileaks story appeared on 29 December, five days after fijivillage had reported that the video was already circulating. Receiving a copy does not establish that I originated the public leak. I followed up on Narayan's nude video story.

TONGUE-TIED. So far the alleged Cabinet Minister remains tongue-tied over cu**ilingus, a form of oral sex that involves using the mouth, lips, or tongue to stimulate a woman's vulva or clitoris.

FORMER failed PAP candidate Paula Manumanunitoga Must Understand: Chiefs Are Not Above Criticism, Indo-Fijians Do Not Need His Permission to Belong. He should be SACKED as the Fijian Teachers Assocaition GS

10/10/2026

Paula Manumanunitoga’s apology does not adequately confront what was wrong with his remarks. He must unequivocally withdraw both the threatening language and the suggestion that fellow citizens’ belonging in Fiji depends upon their ancestry or willingness to defer to chiefs.

According to FBC News, the Fijian Teachers Association’s General Secretary apologised to the Indo-Fijian community while explaining that his comments were retaliation for remarks by some Indo-Fijians which he considered insulting to chiefs and the indigenous community. He also questioned why Indo-Fijian leaders and public officials had not condemned those remarks. That explanation leaves a fundamental problem untouched.

Chiefs are not above criticism. Their political views, public conduct, institutional powers and proposed constitutional roles are legitimate subjects of public scrutiny. Chiefly ancestry does not confer immunity from disagreement.

Manumanunitoga cannot establish that criticism is racist merely by declaring it disrespectful. Nor does an offensive comment by another person give him permission to answer with racial intimidation.

If someone insulted a chief, he could have challenged the particular statement. If someone misrepresented indigenous history, he could have corrected it. If someone used racist language, he could have identified and condemned it.

Instead, his Facebook post questioned why its targets were living in Fiji rather than their countries of origin and threatened to catch them and roast them in earth ovens. These were the words of a man holding office in an organisation representing teachers.

His responsibility for those words cannot be transferred to the people who angered him.

Respect does not require political obedience. I have written about chiefly authority and democratic accountability for decades.

During the Speight coup in July 2000, my analysis for Fiji’s Daily Post, subsequently republished by Fijileaks, examined how the overthrow of Mahendra Chaudhry’s elected government had also deprived ordinary iTaukei of their democratic choice. Men claiming to act for indigenous people had silenced indigenous voters themselves, while the chiefly establishment was again being called upon to determine the country’s political future.

The rights at stake belonged to commoners as well as chiefs, and to iTaukei as well as Indo-Fijians.

I returned to that argument in September 2026, distinguishing customary respect from political obedience. I examined how criticism of chiefly politicians could be recast as an attack upon the vanua or the entire indigenous community, making democratic accountability exceptionally difficult.

That distinction must now be applied to Manumanunitoga’s defence.

An iTaukei citizen may respect a chief and reject the chief’s political advice. An Indo-Fijian citizen may question the powers proposed for the Great Council of Chiefs. A woman or young person may challenge a decision made within a traditional hierarchy.

None should have to surrender independent judgment to demonstrate respect.

Chiefs who enter politics must expect political criticism. Institutions seeking constitutional influence must answer constitutional questions. Bodies receiving public money must account for its use.

The proposed political role of chiefs concerns every citizen whose government may be affected by it. Participation in that debate cannot be reserved for one ethnic community.

History cannot be used to demand silence. My earlier writing on the GCC examined the colonial government’s organisation of chiefly authority and its incorporation into the machinery of administration. That history challenges the assumption that every institutional arrangement defended as tradition must be accepted without examination.

Chiefs have differed among themselves. Some have supported constitutional government and resisted extremism. Others have employed traditional standing in partisan struggles.

Ordinary iTaukei have also challenged chiefly political dominance. My earlier analysis discussed those indigenous disagreements and the struggle to establish an independent democratic voice. Criticism of chiefly power cannot honestly be reduced to hostility from Indo-Fijians.

Manumanunitoga’s reported response turns particular disagreements into a communal confrontation. He invokes chiefs, alleges an insult to indigenous people and demands explanations from Indo-Fijian leaders.

But no ethnic community is collectively answerable for every statement made by someone sharing its ancestry.

Individuals must answer for their own conduct. That principle applies to his critics, and it applies equally to him.

Indo-Fijians are not guests awaiting permission. Indo-Fijians do not require Manumanunitoga’s permission to call Fiji home.

Their belonging cannot be made conditional upon political silence, personal gratitude or sufficient deference to a chiefly institution. Their families have contributed across generations to Fiji’s agriculture, commerce, education, public services and national life.
The descendants of indentured labourers have no inherited obligation to remain politically subordinate.

References to their origins become especially objectionable when used to question their right to speak about the country’s future. Citizens do not lose their standing because a public figure dislikes what they say.

Manumanunitoga’s reference to having Indo-Fijian friends and colleagues does not answer this objection. Friendship across ethnic lines cannot excuse threatening people whose views offend him. The test is whether he recognises their dignity and belonging when they disagree with him.

Roko Tui Bau, Ratu Timoci Tavanavanua, has rejected Manumanunitoga’s remarks, including the earth-oven reference, and said they do not represent the views of the chiefs. He has also affirmed that Fiji belongs to everyone who calls it home.

That intervention challenges Manumanunitoga’s attempt to shelter his hostility behind chiefly respect. But the principle does not depend upon a chief endorsing it. Fellow citizens are entitled to disagree without being threatened.

Biman Prasad must also answer the question of consistency. Biman Prasad has now called for police action over Manumanunitoga’s remarks. On 9 October 2026, FBC reported that he described them as dangerous and potentially criminal and announced that the NFP would lodge a complaint.

An independent assessment of reported threats is entirely proper. However, Prasad’s intervention also invites scrutiny of his consistency.

In June 2019, when Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu described the NFP as a party of the vulagi, Prasad condemned the description as racist and unacceptable. He connected it to the use of the term against Indo-Fijians after the 1987 coups, reaffirmed the NFP’s multiracial character and recalled Jai Ram Reddy’s place as a son of Fiji.

That was a public challenge to the political language of a paramount chief. Chiefly standing did not prevent Prasad from condemning it.

Yet a different picture emerged when his coalition Prime Minister defended the term.

At the World Indigenous Day celebrations on 9 August 2023, Sitiveni Rabuka presented vulagi as an expression of hospitality and the iTaukei responsibility to accommodate and protect others. He told people not to take offence if they were called vulagi.

Chaudhry and Inia Seruiratu publicly criticised those remarks. On 17 August, fijivillage reported that it had sought comment from Rabuka and Prasad but had received no response. That establishes the absence of a response to that inquiry at the time; it does not prove that Prasad never commented subsequently.

Nevertheless, the documented contrast warrants an explanation.

Prasad was forceful when challenging Naiqama in opposition. Where was comparable public resolve when his own Prime Minister defended terminology which critics regarded as diminishing their belonging?

Manumanunitoga's reported threats make the present episode more serious. Rabuka’s remarks and Manumanunitoga’s outburst should not be treated as identical.

But the underlying principle must remain consistent. Equal belonging cannot be defended vigorously against a political opponent and handled cautiously when a coalition partner raises the controversy.

Prasad should explain how his position in 2023 accorded with the principle he defended in 2019 and invokes again today. Political loyalty must not determine whose words receive condemnation.

Teachers deserve accountable leadership. Manumanunitoga’s office carries obligations which his apology has not discharged.

Teachers help children learn how to exercise judgment, respect others and resolve disagreements. Their representative should demonstrate those qualities publicly.

What lesson does threatening language offer an iTaukei pupil learning how to respond to criticism? What reassurance does questioning belonging offer an Indo-Fijian child? What example does this conduct set for any young person whose opinions differ from those of a powerful adult?

The Fijian Teachers Association should unequivocally repudiate the remarks and examine the conduct through its proper processes. Members deserve to know how their organisation intends to uphold the standards expected of educators.

In my view, Manumanunitoga should resign as General Secretary. The reported conduct has gravely damaged the trust required of that office.

Any police assessment must proceed independently, on the evidence and under the applicable law. An apology should not prevent scrutiny, and public anger must not substitute for proof.

I have spent much of my writing life examining the consequences of racial political entitlement in Fiji. The language of origins, conditional belonging and compulsory deference has already inflicted too much damage.

Chiefs can be criticised. Their political influence can be challenged. Indo-Fijians can participate fully in every debate about Fiji’s future.

Manumanunitoga must accept those principles without qualification. They are not his concessions to grant.

From Fijileaks Archive, 14 May 2022

"The yoke, if it fell from the Negroes black neck, was transformed to the brown neck of the coolie. In the process, it has to be somewhat polished. It has to be lightened in weight and even disguised. Nevertheless, in all essentials, it retained its original quality. Indenture is indeed a state of semi-slavery. Like the slave before him, the indentured labourer cannot buy his freedom. A slave was punished for not working; so also is an indentured labourer. If he is negligent, does not attend work for a day, if he answers back, he will suffer imprisonment for one of these lapses. A slave could be sold and handed over by one owner to another, so the indentured labourer can be transferred from one employer to another. The children of a slave inherited the taint of slavery; much the same way, the children of an indentured labourer are subject to laws specially passed for them...It should be noted that indenture came after the abolition of slavery and that indentured labourers were recruited to take the place of slaves."
Mahatma Gandhi, campaigning for abolition of Indian indenture system, 1917

From Plantation, To Politics, To Parliament,
To Lovo PIT, 14 May 1879 to 10 October 2026

10 October 2026: CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY. GOD SAVE FIJI

PRISON TO SENATE: What Safeguards Exist in Fiji’s Proposed New Constitution to Prevent a Convicted Chief, Such as the Tui Namosi, from Being Nominated by the Great Council of Chiefs to Serve in the Senate?

The BALL is in FNRL’s court, and Australia is watching. Fiji Police are investigating 'sexual harassment' allegations against a board member. FNRL says an independent committee is in place, but questions remain

24/9/2026

Executive chairman Peter V'Landys (blue suit with Ausssie PM) in July at an NRL match

The Fiji Police Force has confirmed that it received a report concerning sexual harassment allegations against a Fiji National Rugby League (FNRL) board member and that its investigation is continuing. The allegations have not been proven.

The board member has now responded publicly. Asked by The Fiji Times about concerns raised by FNRL founder and life member Culden Kamea, he said his lawyers would deal with Kamea and others over defamation. He also said an independent committee was in place and that due process should take its course. He did not directly answer the newspaper’s questions about the allegations.

Due process is precisely what this matter requires. It applies to the employee who complained, to the board member who must have a fair chance to answer, and to witnesses who should be able to give their accounts without pressure. The existence of a committee is a start. The question now is how it was established and whether its work can command confidence.

A letter in our possession, dated 16 September 2026, shows that the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) had already put the FNRL board on notice. Signed by executive chairman Peter V’landys, it describes a complaint by a current employee against a senior director, including allegations of non-consensual physical contact and inappropriate verbal conduct. It makes no finding about what occurred.

The ARLC says the investigation is ultimately FNRL’s responsibility. It expects the complaint to be handled promptly, thoroughly and independently, with protection against retaliation for the complainant and procedural fairness for both parties. By 18 September, it wanted to know who would conduct and oversee the investigation, how conflicts would be managed, what interim safeguards were in place and when findings might be expected.

The Fiji Times report gives those questions fresh force. Kamea wants to know who appointed the independent committee, who serves on it, what experience its members have in dealing with sexual harassment complaints and what its terms of reference are. He has also questioned the involvement of accountancy firm PHERRUS, which he says sponsors FNRL, and whether that relationship presents a potential conflict. These are Kamea’s concerns; the reported sponsorship and any resulting conflict should be established, not assumed.

There is also a question about the two investigations. Kamea has asked whether FNRL’s internal process should have been paused once police became involved, citing clause 12.3 of the FNRL Code of Conduct. The clause should be read in full before anyone states that it requires a pause. FNRL should explain what it has decided and how it will avoid interfering with police inquiries while still meeting its responsibilities to the people in its workplace.

FNRL’s relationship with Australian rugby league adds another dimension. Fiji joined the Pacific Rugby League Partnership in August. The Australian Government has committed A$250 million over ten years to the partnership across Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga. Its announced aims include stronger sporting bodies and safe school and community competitions. That figure is regional funding, not a sum earmarked for FNRL alone.

In a Facebook post, Charlie Charters argues that FNRL’s Code of Conduct expressly refers to standards expected by Australia’s National Rugby League. The ARLC letter refers to FNRL’s commitment to standards aligned with its own, including respectful behaviour and safe workplaces. Publication of the relevant Code provisions would clarify exactly what FNRL has undertaken to do and what role, if any, its Australian partner has in the complaints process.

An Australian partnership does not decide a Fiji workplace complaint. But the ARLC has made clear that it expects FNRL to account for the process it adopts. FNRL can answer many of the questions now being asked without disclosing confidential evidence: name the committee members, publish or describe their terms of reference, explain how they were chosen, address any conflicts and state how their inquiry will proceed alongside the police investigation.

It should also explain the interim arrangements affecting everyone involved. Kamea has raised concerns about the alleged suspension of his son Randall, who he says forwarded the complaint to the board, and has claimed that the board member entered FNRL’s office while suspended. Those claims require a response from FNRL; they should not be presented as established facts.

No one should pronounce the board member guilty on the strength of a complaint. Equally, asking how a complaint against a person in authority is being investigated is a legitimate question, not a verdict. It is especially important that public argument about the case does not become a substitute for hearing from the employee, the respondent and any witnesses through a fair process.

FNRL says it has an independent committee. It now needs to show what independence means in practice. With police investigating and the ARLC seeking answers, the ball remains in FNRL’s court.

FNRL safeguarding inquiry: the Board must now answer the questions its own report raises

A preliminary safeguarding report delivered to the Fiji National Rugby League board on 24 September raises a question larger than the allegation that prompted it: does the organisation have a reliable way to receive a complaint, protect those involved and reach a fair decision?

The report does not answer whether misconduct occurred. Its authors describe their work as an advisory fact finding exercise, and a central interview had yet to take place when they submitted it. The person facing the allegation denies inappropriate conduct. Those limits matter. Neither the board nor the public should turn an unfinished inquiry into a verdict.

What the report does describe is an organisation struggling with its own procedures. It identifies uncertainty over working arrangements, gaps in written documentation and no sufficiently clear route for staff to raise safeguarding or harassment complaints independently of management. It also records concerns about control of electronic signatures and delegated authority.

These are governance questions in their own right. A person entering a workplace should know who supervises them, what rules apply and where to take a complaint. The person complained about should know precisely what is alleged and have a proper opportunity to respond. The board should be able to establish who authorised a document and when. According to its preliminary advisers, FNRL needs to strengthen each of these foundations.

The report also considers the place of familiar joking in the office. Workplace banter may be ordinary to those who have worked together for years. That does not settle how a remark or gesture is experienced by someone else. Equally, an allegation cannot be decided by assuming that an informal office culture proves wrongdoing. The task is to examine the particular evidence, with care for everyone concerned.

Fair procedure will be especially important in the next stage. The report says further evidence must be gathered before a final finding is possible. If that evidence supports a possible breach, it recommends a formal notice setting out the case and time for a response under the FNRL code. It also urges the board to settle questions about the inquiry’s independence and the participation of external observers before deferred interviews resume.

There is a separate police process. The internal inquiry and any criminal investigation have different purposes, and the board must handle their timing under its own rules. That does not relieve it of the immediate duty to maintain appropriate safeguards, protect confidentiality and prevent pressure or retaliation while the matter remains unresolved.

The board has been given practical recommendations: independent support, clear interim boundaries, written terms for people working within the organisation, tighter document controls and a dedicated safeguarding policy with a reporting route outside executive management. It should say which recommendations it has adopted and who is responsible for carrying them out. It can do so without publishing private testimony or prejudging the allegation.

FNRL’s response will be measured by the fairness of the process it now completes and by the protections it puts in place afterwards. The preliminary report has identified weaknesses. The board must show how it intends to remedy them.

Rajesh Singh

The Fiji National Rugby League (FNRL) board and staff are committed to taking the sport to greater heights.

This was told to SUNsports yesterday (22 September) by FNRL executive chairman Rajesh Singh, who said they had no room to entertain people trying to bring instability to the organisation.

“The FNRL is not the place for people to come and make a living out of it,” he said. “I’ve got the A-team working with me. They are committed and we’ll try to set the financial records straight as we’ve to be accountable to all our funders, clubs and everyone involved in the sport.

“Also, we want to see our match officials, medics and coaches get accredited.”

Singh highlighted that rugby league had become a career opportunity for most young people and local-based players.

He said players such as Sisa Waqa, Viliame Kikau, Semi Radradra, Tui Kamikamica and Marika Koroibete were local players who had made it big in the NRL (National Rugby League).

Singh said there were also local players contracted to and playing for clubs in the New South Wales and Queensland Cup competitions.

“We are fortunate to have someone like the Fiji Bati head coach Mick Potter with us, who is assisting us to create a pathway for our local players.”

Singh said the focus right now was on the Vodafone Cup finals set for Saturday at Churchill Park in Lautoka and next month’s Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) in Australia.

“This is an opportunity for local players to impress the selectors on Saturday as we’re selecting a Fiji Residents team to tour Australia, probably early next year. Negotiations are going on for the Residents to play three matches against clubs playing in the Queensland Cup competition.”

Singh said the Residents would be coached by Vula Dakutioga, with Vela Tawake as the assistant coach.

Singh said details concerning player selection and team training for the RLWC would be answered by Potter.

Sitiveni Rabuka: Change or Consistency. His 2012 submission to Ghai Draft Commission returns to confront the 2026 DRAFT CONSTITUTION

23/9/2026

Sitiveni Rabuka’s 2012 submission is not merely an archival curiosity locked away in Fijileaks 'CRC Submissions Archive'. It is a standard against which his Government’s conduct and the Commission’s proposals can be measured. It reminds us that Rabuka understood, at least in principle, that a Constitution cannot rest upon Cabinet authority alone. It must command the confidence of the people. His Government must therefore publish the Cabinet subcommittee’s membership, its instructions, the advisers and drafters assisting it, every alteration it proposes and the reasons for those alterations. It must allow the people enough time to compare the Commission’s draft with the Government’s Bill. And it must not use the 6 February 2027 election deadline as an excuse to hurry Fiji into a constitutional settlement that the Commission itself admits could have been much improved with more time. Rabuka told the Ghai Commission in 2012 that constitutional deliberations should be completed “without fear or favour”.
Fourteen years later, the same requirement applies to him.

Fourteen years ago, Sitiveni Rabuka told the Ghai Commission that Fiji should be a Christian state, that politicians should face no term limits, that FICAC should be placed under the Police Commissioner, and that constitutional legitimacy must rest upon the expressed will of the people.

The present Draft Constitution accepts some of his ideas, rejects others and may prevent him from returning as Prime Minister.

In October 2012, Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka presented a 20-page personal submission to the Constitution Commission chaired by Professor Yash Ghai.

Fijileaks subsequently published it under the headline: “Coupist to constitutionalist: Sitiveni Rabuka shares his vision of post-coup Fiji before the Constitution Review Commission.”

Fourteen years later, Rabuka is Prime Minister, the minister responsible for constitutional matters, and the political custodian of another Constitution Review Commission report and Draft Constitution.

His 2012 submission has therefore acquired a significance that it could not have possessed when it was written.

It allows us to compare what Rabuka advocated as a former coup leader and former prime minister in 2012 with what the Commission appointed by his Government has now recommended in 2026.

It also permits comparison with Rabuka’s latest public statements, including his declaration that the constitutional process is not being rushed, his more accommodating position on Fiji’s religious character, his acknowledgement that the two-term provision could prevent him from returning as Prime Minister, and his disclosure that a Cabinet subcommittee is changing the Commission’s proposals before they reach Parliament.

The comparison reveals continuity, retreat, adaptation and several striking contradictions.

The people’s will and the Cabinet door

Rabuka’s 2012 submission began with an assumption that the Bainimarama Government would adhere to the 1997 Constitution.

He regarded that Constitution as the most democratically legitimate of Fiji’s constitutional instruments, although he acknowledged that the road leading to it was not entirely free of constitutional difficulty.

His description of the 1990 Constitution is particularly relevant today.

Rabuka recalled that the Interim Government Cabinet had considered the Falvey Commission’s recommendations, sent them for drafting into constitutional form and presented the resulting document to the Bose Levu Vakaturaga before the President promulgated it.

He then acknowledged the essential defect: “Because the 1990 Constitution was not ‘the will of the people’, it was always going to be difficult to work with.”

Rabuka was correct.

A Constitution does not acquire democratic legitimacy merely because a commission first receives public submissions. The fate of those submissions, the drafting that follows, the institutions controlling the final text and the opportunity given to the people to scrutinise it are equally important.

That observation now returns to confront the present process.

The 2026 Constitution Review Commission conducted public consultations and delivered its report and Draft Constitution to the President. But Rabuka has disclosed that a Cabinet subcommittee has spent two weeks deliberating on the Commission’s proposed amendments and making changes.

He says those changes will be the ones that proceed to Parliament.

The historical circumstances are not identical. The present Government was elected, Parliament remains in existence, and any constitutional amendment must satisfy the parliamentary and referendum requirements identified by the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, the warning contained in Rabuka’s own 2012 submission remains applicable.

Public consultation with a commission cannot automatically legitimise provisions subsequently rewritten by Cabinet.

If the Cabinet subcommittee materially changes the Draft Constitution, the final document will no longer be exclusively the product of the Commission’s consultation. It will be the Coalition Government’s constitutional Bill.

That is not necessarily unconstitutional or improper. Cabinet is entitled to formulate legislation. But it must accept political authorship and responsibility for what it changes.

Who sits on the subcommittee? Who is advising it? Who is drafting its amendments? Which Commission recommendations have been accepted, rejected or rewritten? Will the public be given both versions and enough time to compare them?

The Government’s Cabinet statement identifies none of the members. It says only that the subcommittee will consider the practical, legal and policy implications of the recommendations, including transitional arrangements, and report to Cabinet.

The Constitution Review Commission’s own report makes Rabuka’s dismissal of concerns about haste difficult to sustain.

The Commission records that it had little more than five months to complete its work. Public consultations continued until early July. Deliberations occupied the period from early July to the middle of August. Drafting instructions were being prepared while the drafter attempted to keep ahead of the Commission’s decisions. A revised draft became available only near the end of August.

The Commission candidly accepts that the draft could be considerably improved, but that there was insufficient time for a comprehensive revision.

That is the Commission speaking, not a political opponent.

Rabuka says constitutional change has been discussed since 2013 and therefore the present process is not rushed. But years of general criticism of the 2013 Constitution cannot be converted into years of public consultation on a document that did not exist until August 2026.

Fijians could not have studied in 2013 the proposed 41-seat House of Representatives, the 19-member Senate, the mixed-member proportional electoral system, the Presidential Appointment Commission, the constitutionalised BLV, the two-term limit for the Prime Minister or the Commission’s new transitional provisions.

Nor could they have commented upon changes now being made by the Cabinet subcommittee.

From a Christian state to constitutional religious liberty

The clearest change in Rabuka’s public position concerns religion.

In his 2012 submission, Rabuka acknowledged that Fiji had never been declared a Christian state by any written law or Constitution. He warned that declaring Fiji either Christian or secular could produce disadvantages.

But he then came down firmly on one side: “It is better that the Constitutions and written laws declare Fiji a Christian state rather than declaring it a secular state.”

He argued that Fiji’s political evolution had been influenced by love, forgiveness, accommodation, custom and customary law grounded in the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The 2026 Draft Constitution does not follow that recommendation.

Its preamble gives Christianity a prominent place. It recalls the conversion of Fiji’s indigenous inhabitants and recognises Christianity’s enduring influence, together with the contribution of other faiths to the country’s spiritual life.

But the operative constitutional provisions do not declare Fiji a Christian state.

Nor does the draft expressly retain the 2013 Constitution’s description of Fiji as a “secular State”.

Instead, proposed section 4 declares religious liberty to be a founding principle. It provides that religious belief is personal, that the State must treat all religions equally, and that public officers must not prefer or advance one religion, denomination or belief over another or over a non-religious belief.

In substance, that is the constitutional principle of secular government, even if the word “secular” has been removed.

Rabuka’s latest statements are notably different from his 2012 position. He has said that his Christian faith is well known, but that simply declaring Fiji a Christian state would not make the country Christian. Christianity, he says, must be demonstrated through humility, kindness, compassion, hard work, service and love.

That represents a significant retreat from his 2012 proposal for a formal Christian state.

It is also a more constitutionally inclusive position for a multi-religious country.

The Commission’s draft attempts a compromise. It recognises Fiji’s Christian history and influence in the preamble while retaining legal neutrality among religions in the enforceable provisions.

Some Christians may regard that as insufficient. Some non-Christians may consider the preamble too heavily weighted towards Christianity. But it is not accurate simply to describe the draft as either a Christian-state Constitution or an abandonment of religion.

It is a religiously worded preamble attached to a substantively non-establishment constitutional provision.

Rabuka’s BLV and the Commission’s BLV

On the Bose Levu Vakaturaga, there is considerable agreement between Rabuka’s 2012 submission and the 2026 Commission.

Rabuka argued that the BLV should be recognised in the Constitution rather than left to ordinary legislation. He described it as an institution capable of operating during political instability and a vacuum of authority.

But he did not advocate a narrowly hereditary body.

Rabuka said the contemporary BLV should be more inclusive of non-traditional chiefs and other Fijians who had distinguished themselves in the professions and industry. It should include high achievers and benevolent thinkers, remain non-partisan and possess the confidence of the country.

That part of his submission deserves renewed attention.

The 2026 draft constitutionalises the BLV and gives it significant national powers. It would nominate eight members of the proposed 19-member Senate and three members of the proposed Presidential Appointment Commission. It would also nominate representatives to bodies concerned with iTaukei land, fisheries, administration and trust funds.

But the proposed composition is not as professionally or socially inclusive as Rabuka’s 2012 vision.

The draft provides for 42 chiefs representing the 14 provinces, three from each province. They must come from identified categories of traditionally installed chiefs. One of the three provincial representatives must be a woman, “if possible”.

There would also be six members nominated by the minister responsible for iTaukei affairs, three Rotuman representatives and the President, Prime Minister and iTaukei Affairs Minister as ex officio members.

Rabuka wanted an apolitical assembly containing qualified non-traditional leaders and accomplished Fijians. The new draft constructs a predominantly chiefly institution while giving a Cabinet minister the power to nominate six additional members.

It also places the Prime Minister and a minister within the body, although as non-voting members.

The Commission calls the BLV independent, but its proposed composition introduces a visible political presence.

There is another problem. By giving the BLV three of seven seats on the Presidential Appointment Commission, the draft makes it the largest single bloc in choosing the Head of State. The Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Fiji Council of Churches and Interfaith Search Fiji would each hold one place.

That structure does not ensure that Fiji’s communities outside the BLV and the faith organisations will have an effective voice. Indo-Fijians, Rotumans, Banabans, other Pacific Islanders, women, young people, commoner iTaukei and those of no religious faith are not guaranteed direct representation.

Rabuka’s 2012 call for a broader council of chiefs and national achievers may, in this respect, have been more inclusive than the institution now proposed by his Commission.

Parliament, political parties and local representation

Rabuka’s 2012 submission criticised an electoral system in which unsuitable individuals could enter Parliament merely because they were candidates of a popular political party.

He argued that an MP’s capacity to represent the wishes of the people was more important than the strength of the party label.

He proposed a 53-member elected Parliament, based roughly upon one MP for every 15,000 people.

The 2026 draft follows the spirit, although not the arithmetic, of that recommendation.
It proposes a 41-member House of Representatives and a 19-member Senate, producing a total Parliament of 60.

The House would be elected through mixed-member proportional representation. Twenty-six members would be elected from constituencies, including five maritime constituencies. Fifteen would come from party lists. Parties would generally need 5 per cent of the party vote or at least one constituency victory to qualify for proportional representation.

This partially responds to Rabuka’s demand for identifiable local representatives. It ends the present single national constituency and allows independent candidates to contest constituency seats.

But political parties would remain powerful. Fifteen House seats would be filled from party lists, and party discipline provisions remain embedded in the draft.

The Commission has therefore attempted a compromise between Rabuka’s constituency-based representation and the proportionality of the present system.

Whether 41 elected members are sufficient to represent Fiji’s population, islands, ethnic diversity and remote communities is another question. Rabuka himself proposed 53 elected MPs in 2012. The present draft offers only 41 elected representatives, supplemented by an appointed Senate.

The 75-year warning and the two-term barrier

One paragraph in Rabuka’s 2012 submission now possesses an unavoidable personal relevance. He wrote: “There should be no limit to the length of time a politician can serve in parliament.” But he immediately added that service beyond the age of 75 could become “more burdensome to the state than productive”.

Rabuka is now 78.

He remains Prime Minister and leader of the People’s Alliance. His name continues to feature in discussions about the next election and the premiership that may follow.

The Commission has not imposed a retirement age upon parliamentarians. In that sense, its draft remains consistent with Rabuka’s 2012 position. He could still stand for election to the House, subject to satisfying the general qualifications.

But the draft introduces a separate limitation upon the office of Prime Minister.

Proposed section 115(5) states that no person may be appointed or elected Prime Minister more than twice, whether the terms are consecutive or non-consecutive.

Rabuka has served as Prime Minister following the 1992 election and again following the 2022 election. He has publicly accepted that the proposed provision, if enacted in its current form, would prevent him from returning as Prime Minister after the next election.

The drafting remains open to legal argument because it contains no clear transitional provision stating whether prime ministerial appointments before commencement must be counted.

FBC was therefore right to identify a possible constitutional barrier, but the matter is not as simple as counting three calendar periods. The provision limits appointments or elections to the office, not parliamentary candidacy, and its retrospective application requires clarification.

The Cabinet subcommittee may now preserve, alter, qualify or remove that clause.

That is why its membership and amendments must be disclosed. A committee containing politicians should not secretly determine whether the serving Prime Minister may return to office.

FICAC: a direct rejection of Rabuka’s 2012 proposal

Rabuka’s 2012 position on FICAC was unequivocal.

He said corruption was a serious problem but that FICAC was not justified as an independent body. He proposed placing it under the Commissioner of Police for administrative and professional control.

The 2026 Draft Constitution rejects that proposal.

It retains FICAC as a constitutionally recognised body comprising a Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner. Both would be appointed by the President on the advice of the Judicial Services Commission.

There is, however, an important alteration. FICAC would investigate corruption but would not independently prosecute. It could recommend that the Director of Public Prosecutions institute or conduct criminal proceedings.

The Commission has therefore chosen to preserve an independent specialist investigative body while transferring prosecutorial authority to the DPP.

That is almost the reverse of Rabuka’s 2012 recommendation. FICAC would not fall under the Police Commissioner, but its power would be divided to create a check between investigation and prosecution.

The military under civilian authority

On the constitutional position of the military, Rabuka’s 2012 submission and the 2026 draft share a common principle. Rabuka proposed that the RFMF be constitutionally established for defence and internal security, acting with the Police, but operating under Parliament and subject to legislation.

The Commission goes further. Its draft gives the RFMF primary responsibility for defence against external threats. Domestic assistance would be limited to legally specified purposes, including disasters and emergencies, and would require civilian authorisation.

The Commander would retain military executive command but would exercise it subject to the direction of Cabinet through the responsible minister. The report expressly seeks to close the “guardianship” loophole historically invoked to justify military intervention in politics.

This is broadly consistent with the civilian subordination Rabuka proposed in 2012. But the 2026 draft is clearer in limiting the military’s constitutional function and rejecting any independent entitlement to intervene in government.

The Commission also proposes a constitutional Military Court, presided over by a sitting High Court judge. That is a significant addition absent from Rabuka’s 2012 submission and requires careful scrutiny of jurisdiction, prosecutorial independence and the rights of military accused.

Immunity: Rabuka hesitated then and hesitates now

Rabuka’s 2012 position on immunity was complicated. He proposed forgiveness for Bainimarama and others involved in the 2006 coup, first through the BLV and Methodist Church, followed by a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission considering restorative justice, restitution, compensation, amnesty and pardon.

He argued that immunity or amnesty would be legitimate only if it reflected the expressed will of the people.

He also stated that no new immunity should be included in the Constitution, apart from immunity already enacted by a government of the people.

The 2026 Commission takes a firmer position.

Its draft declares that no immunity may lawfully be granted for an attempt to establish a government contrary to the Constitution. Its report recommends repealing the existing immunity chapter inherited from the 2013 Constitution.

Curiously, the Draft Constitution reproduces a Chapter 15 headed “Immunity” but does not draft a complete replacement provision. It inserts a bracketed note stating that the Commission recommends that the chapter be repealed.

Rabuka has so far stopped short of personally endorsing that repeal. When questioned after tabling the report, he emphasised that it was a Commission recommendation and that the Cabinet subcommittee had been examining the proposals.

His hesitation resembles the caution in his 2012 submission.

Then, he opposed automatic new immunity but favoured a nationally accepted process capable of producing amnesty after truth and reconciliation. Now, faced with a recommendation to remove existing immunity, he has left the matter to Cabinet and Parliament.

The country must be told whether the Cabinet subcommittee intends to retain, repeal or modify Chapter 15.

The common name

Rabuka’s 2012 submission stressed the preservation of Fiji’s different cultures and identities. He argued that constitutional unity should not require cultural uniformity.

He later explained publicly that his submission had opposed forcing Fiji’s Indian community to discard its distinctive identity and adopt a name traditionally associated with the indigenous population.

The 2026 Commission has adopted an elaborate compromise.

The Draft Constitution provides that all citizens will continue to be known as Fijians for an interim period of up to 12 months. A culturally appropriate national consultation would then seek agreement on a common identity. If no consensus emerged, the question would proceed to a referendum within a further 12 months.

That approach corresponds with Rabuka’s objection to imposing identity without consent. But it also risks reopening ethnic divisions that the common name was intended to overcome.

The Commission itself was divided. A minority wanted “Fijian” retained for all citizens and warned that a referendum on national identity could polarise the country.

The Cabinet subcommittee must now decide whether this proposal survives.

Which Rabuka will Parliament hear? The 2012 Rabuka and the 2026 Rabuka are not wholly different men.

Both emphasise Christianity, reconciliation, indigenous institutions, customary rights, constituency representation and civilian control over the military.

But there are important changes.

The Rabuka who preferred a constitutionally declared Christian state now says Christianity cannot be created by constitutional declaration.

The Rabuka who opposed limits on parliamentary service now accepts that the Commission’s two-term prime ministerial provision may prevent his return.

The Rabuka who wanted FICAC placed under the Police Commissioner presides over a draft retaining it as a separate constitutional institution.

The Rabuka who argued that constitutional legitimacy depends upon the expressed will of the people now defends a timetable that his own Commission’s report reveals was severely compressed.

The Rabuka who described the 1990 Constitution as deficient because it was not the people’s will now heads a Government whose unidentified Cabinet subcommittee is altering the product of public consultations before Parliament sees the final Bill.

None of this automatically establishes bad faith.

Political leaders change their views. Constitutional experience teaches lessons. Fiji in 2026 is not Fiji in 1987, 1990 or 2012. A leader should not be imprisoned permanently by every position he once held.

But constitutional consistency and transparency still matter.

Rabuka’s 2012 submission is not merely an archival curiosity. It is a standard against which his Government’s conduct and the Commission’s proposals can be measured.

It reminds us that Rabuka understood, at least in principle, that a Constitution cannot rest upon Cabinet authority alone. It must command the confidence of the people.

His Government must therefore publish the Cabinet subcommittee’s membership, its instructions, the advisers and drafters assisting it, every alteration it proposes and the reasons for those alterations.

It must allow the people enough time to compare the Commission’s draft with the Government’s Bill.

And it must not use the 6 February 2027 election deadline as an excuse to hurry Fiji into a constitutional settlement that the Commission itself admits could have been much improved with more time.

Rabuka told the Ghai Commission in 2012 that constitutional deliberations should be completed “without fear or favour”.

Fourteen years later, the same requirement applies to him.

Click here Rabuka's 2012 Submission

Rabuka and the Media: From the Silencing of 1987 to a Welcome Promise of Freedom in 2026
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s declaration at the 8th Pacific Media Summit in Savusavu that his Government does not want to silence the media is encouraging. I say this as one of the journalists whose freedom and career were directly affected by the events of 1987.
Nearly four decades later, his public commitment to allow Fiji’s media to keep talking should be welcomed, while history reminds us why that promise must be honoured.

A Constitution Is Not a Scorecard: CDD’s 17 Out of 22 Claim Misses the Larger Question on CRC Report. 17 out of 22 is a fine result if one is marking a submission. It is a poor way to judge a new draft constitution

23/9/2026

Nilesh Lal

The Centre for Democracy and Dialogue has found much to welcome in the Constitution Review Commission’s draft Constitution. That is its right. It has also found much of its own submission in the document. Its chief executive, Nilesh Lal, says that around 17 of Dialogue Fiji’s 22 proposals are reflected in the draft. He calls the draft, in many respects, a major improvement on the 2013 Constitution.

Seventeen out of 22 is a fine result if one is marking a submission. It is a poor way to judge a constitution.

The figure deserves a closer look. In CDD’s first statement, 17 proposals were said to be reflected “to some degree”, including 12 substantially or fully reflected. In its next statement, the 17 became “almost 80 per cent”.

The arithmetic is sound. What the percentage conceals is that five of those proposals have only partial recognition, by CDD’s own preliminary account. The public has yet to see a clause by clause explanation of what was accepted, what was changed and what was left behind.

CDD’s account reads rather like a report to its supporters on how many of its recommendations found favour. Its donors may be pleased by that figure. Fiji’s voters need a different accounting: which proposals were adopted, in what form, and whether the constitution as a whole deserves their support.

The organisation identifies Bread for the World as a funder of some of its constitutional education publications. That funding tells us nothing about why CDD chose to emphasise the number in this press release. The number must be judged on its usefulness to the public.

There are gains worth examining. A limit on the Prime Minister’s terms, a cap on Cabinet size, stronger protection for rights, more independent appointments and firmer parliamentary scrutiny all deserve consideration. CDD has argued for such changes and is entitled to say when the Commission has listened.

The question before Fiji, however, is whether the proposed constitution, taken as a whole, would distribute power fairly, protect every citizen and command public confidence. A serious flaw in representation cannot be cancelled by a dozen attractive provisions elsewhere.

CDD knows this. In its own preliminary assessment it raises serious concerns about the proposed electoral system: 26 constituency seats and 15 compensatory list seats in a 41 seat House. It questions the return of a 19 member Senate containing unelected members, the reopening of the debate over a common Fijian identity, and constitutional political roles for traditional or ethnically defined institutions. These matters concern who gets a voice in Parliament and who exercises authority over citizens.

Take the electoral proposal. CDD warns that the Commission’s version of mixed member proportional representation could operate in a strongly majoritarian fashion because so many seats would be decided in single member constituencies. Fiji’s electoral arrangements have never been a mere exercise in choosing a voting formula.

They affect whether votes translate fairly into seats and whether communities can see themselves represented. If the proposed system fails that test, a constitutional cap on Cabinet will offer little comfort to those left outside the chamber.

The proposed Senate raises a related question. What authority would its unelected members possess, and to whom would they answer? CDD rightly asks whether Fiji should move from a fully elected national legislature to one in which a substantial part is selected through political and traditional institutions. That concern calls for close examination of the Senate’s composition and powers. It should not be softened by the reassuring sound of “17 out of 22”.

CDD says a constitution must protect the ruled from the ruler. Agreed. But power can sit beyond the Cabinet of the day, in appointments bodies, unelected chambers and institutions whose decisions affect people who had no meaningful part in choosing them. Every proposed safeguard needs the same test: who appoints its members, whose interests can they advance, what powers can they exercise, and how can the public hold them to account?

There is also the question of the Commission’s assignment. It was established to review the Constitution and make recommendations. The public has now been given a draft constitution alongside its report.

CDD may favour many provisions, but it should address plainly how the draft was prepared, who drafted it, and how citizens are expected to scrutinise changes of this scale. Praise for an improved clause cannot settle questions about the process that produced the whole document.

None of this requires CDD to withdraw its support for worthwhile reforms. Its warning about possible regressions is valuable. It does require CDD to publish the full comparison behind its figure. Identify the five proposals that did not make it, the five reflected only partly, and the clauses said to meet the other 12. Then explain how those gains stand up against the proposed changes to elections, Parliament and national institutions.

CDD has promised a fuller assessment. It should use that assessment to ask the hardest question of its own favourable finding: could a draft adopt most of CDD’s proposals and still leave Fiji with a constitution it ought to reject in its present form?

The answer cannot be found by counting recommendations. Fiji’s people will have to live under the entire constitution. They are entitled to weigh every exercise of power it permits, every voice it includes, and every voice it leaves out.

The Constitution Review Commission heard from 3,873 people, but only 7 per cent of those recorded by ethnicity were Indo-Fijians. Before its report is presented as the voice of the nation by Nilesh Lal and his CDD, he should ask whose voices were heard, whose were missing, and why.

A Constitution That Remembers Cession but Somehow Forgets Girmit

“ACKNOWLEDGING our unique constitutional history: (a) first, the Deed of Cession of 10 October 1874, when Ratu Epenisa Seru Cakobau and the High Chiefs of Fiji, signifying their loyalty and devotion to God and the rule of law, ceded Fiji to Great Britain, followed by the cession of Rotuma to Great Britain by the Chiefs of Rotuma in May 1881…”

One of the Constitution Review Commission members, Neelesh Goundar, has yet to reply to my question whether he insisted, or even considered suggesting, that this account of Fiji’s “unique constitutional history” should also acknowledge the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers, the girmitiyas, aboard the Leonidas on 14 May 1879.

Chronologically, girmit belongs between the Deed of Cession in 1874 and the cession of Rotuma in 1881. Historically, its omission speaks more loudly than its inclusion ever could.

Cakobau Government Sought Indian Labour in 1872
*It was Ratu Seru Cakobau’s chief official, John Bates Thurston, a member of the Cakobau Government, who wrote directly to the Government of India in 1872, advocating the introduction of Indian indentured labourers to help rescue Fiji’s struggling economy. Thurston pointed out that Fiji had a ‘fully constituted government of European residents and native chiefs’, which had been recognised by British and other European powers. Indigenous Fijians, he added, had ‘lately emerged from barbarism’ and were displaying a ‘remarkably cordial attitude’ towards foreigners. He was suggesting, in effect, that there would be no indigenous hostility towards the introduction of Indian labourers into Fiji. It was governor Sir Arthur Gordon who, in 1879, secured the labourers.

NFP leader Biman Prasad’s failed stay application, disclosure failures and why we have remained silent on Platinum Hotels & Resorts TRIAL

22/9/2026

*As one of the complainants whose material is identified in the recent Fiji High Court judgment, I have deliberately refrained from commenting on the merits of the Platinum Hotels case before the Suva Magistrates Court. That restraint does not prevent me from reporting on separate matters or submitting further complaints arising from my continuing examination of Biman Prasad's statutory declarations from 2014 to 2024.

Since NFP leader Biman Chand Prasad was charged by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption, I have made no public comment on the merits of the criminal case concerning Platinum Hotels and Resorts Pte Limited.

That silence has been deliberate.

I am one of the complainants whose material was placed before FICAC. My name now appears three times in the High Court judgment delivered on 21 September 2026.

In those circumstances, it would be inappropriate for me to conduct a parallel public trial, assess the strength of evidence that remains before the Magistrates’ Court, or express an opinion on whether Prasad is guilty or innocent.

Those questions belong to the Suva Magistrates’ Court.

Prasad has pleaded not guilty and remains entitled to the presumption of innocence. Nothing in this article should be read as expressing any view on the eventual outcome of his trial.

The High Court judgment, however, is a public document. It concerns a separate and important legal question: whether FICAC’s handling of disclosure was so prejudicial, oppressive or improper that the prosecution should be brought permanently to an end without the Magistrates’ Court determining the charge.

Justice Thushara Rajasinghe decided that it should not.

What Prasad asked the High Court to do

Prasad applied for a permanent stay of Criminal Action No. MACD 08/2025.

A permanent stay would have ended the prosecution, not because the Magistrates’ Court had heard all the evidence and found the charge unproved, but because the process surrounding the prosecution was said to have become irreparably unfair.

Prasad is charged with one count of failing to comply with statutory disclosure requirements under section 24(5), read with section 24(1B)(d), of the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Act 2013.

There is also an alternative count of providing false information in a statutory declaration under section 27(1)(c).

The allegation concerns Prasad’s 2015 declaration and his alleged failure to disclose his directorship in Platinum Hotels and Resorts Pte Limited.

Those allegations remain allegations. The High Court was not asked to determine whether they were true.

The stay application was built principally upon alleged failures by FICAC to disclose material to the defence.

Prasad’s lawyers argued that FICAC had deliberately withheld material that could assist the defence; that its conduct was oppressive and prejudicial; and that it breached Prasad’s constitutional right to a fair trial. They submitted that the prosecution’s conduct, when viewed cumulatively, amounted to an abuse of the Court’s process.

The defence relied upon several matters.

These included the delayed disclosure of two statements described in the judgment as the “NFP statements”, the timing of an application to amend the charge, the recording and delivery of a statement from former Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem, the late service of a statement by investigating officer Asenaca Niumataiwalu, and the disclosure of my complaint.

Why my name appears in the judgment

My name first appears in paragraph 4, where the judge summarises the allegations contained in an affidavit filed in support of Prasad’s application.

One of the matters alleged was: “Deliberately withholding from the Applicant the Complaint of Mr. Victor Lal, despite the Court’s order, which was disclosed only after several requests.”

That was an allegation advanced on behalf of Prasad. It was not a finding by the High Court that FICAC had deliberately concealed my complaint.

This distinction is essential.

My name appears again in paragraph 25. By that stage, the judge was considering whether delayed disclosure had caused any continuing prejudice to Prasad’s defence.

The judge recorded that the prosecution had already disclosed the two NFP statements and my complaint, as requested by Prasad. He observed that the prosecution’s first witness was still giving evidence-in-chief. Prasad therefore remained able to study the documents and instruct his lawyers before the cross-examination of that witness began.

My name appears for the third time in paragraph 26.

Again, the judge was recording the defence argument. Prasad’s counsel Richard Naidu contended that the cumulative effect of the delayed disclosure of the NFP statements and my complaint, together with other aspects of FICAC’s conduct, established bad faith and deliberate tactical action intended to disadvantage Prasad.

The Court did not accept that conclusion.

The judgment does not examine the contents of my complaint. It does not decide whether anything stated in it is true or false. It makes no finding against me, nor does it criticise my conduct.

My complaint entered the High Court proceedings because Prasad’s lawyers relied upon the timing of its disclosure as part of their wider allegation of prosecutorial unfairness.

That is the full legal significance of the references to my name in this judgment.

The exceptional remedy of a permanent stay

Justice Rajasinghe emphasised that permanently stopping a criminal prosecution is an exceptional remedy, reserved for the clearest cases.

The Court adopted the two-limbed test previously discussed in Takiveikata v State and in an earlier 2026 High Court judgment involving Prasad.

A permanent stay may be justified where:

a fair trial can no longer be held; or
the conduct of the executive is so wrong that allowing the prosecution to continue would affront the conscience of the Court.

Under the first limb, the central question was whether Prasad could still receive a fair trial without his defence being impaired.

Under the second, the question was wider. It concerned the integrity of the administration of justice and whether the prosecution had misused the processes of the Court.

A permanent stay is not ordinarily imposed to punish a prosecutor for errors. It is imposed where the damage is so serious that the trial cannot fairly continue, or where allowing it to continue would itself bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

That is a high threshold. Justice Rajasinghe found that it had not been crossed.

FICAC’s duty of disclosure

The most important part of the judgment may be its discussion of prosecutorial disclosure.

Relying upon the House of Lords decision in R v Brown and the Canadian Supreme Court judgment in R v Stinchcombe, Justice Rajasinghe affirmed that a prosecutor’s duty extends beyond evidence supporting the prosecution.

Material must also be disclosed where it may undermine the prosecution’s case or assist the defence.

This obligation is fundamental to a fair trial. An accused person must know the case to be answered and must receive materially relevant information held by the investigating and prosecuting authorities.

The judgment records a concerning admission.

FICAC investigating officer Asenaca Niumataiwalu deposed that she had not understood that disclosure extended to material that could assist the defence or undermine the prosecution.

She maintained that the two NFP statements had not been deliberately concealed. Once she understood the wider duty, she and her team leader reviewed the investigative materials and identified the statements as disclosable.

Those materials included witness statements, draft statements, investigators’ notebooks, search-warrant material, seized documents, electronic records and correspondence.

The High Court accepted that there was no evidence establishing deliberate concealment or a tactical attempt to disadvantage Prasad.

Nevertheless, Justice Rajasinghe made a significant observation. He found that prosecution counsel appeared to lack awareness of the duty of disclosure and had therefore failed properly to advise the investigators about the material that needed to be identified and disclosed.

That is hardly a ringing endorsement of the prosecution’s management of disclosure. A court need not permanently stop a prosecution before concerns about prosecutorial competence become legitimate matters of public interest. The duty of disclosure should be understood from the beginning of an investigation and applied systematically, not discovered in the middle of a trial.

But poor handling, lack of awareness or delayed disclosure does not automatically produce a permanent stay. The legal question remains whether the accused has suffered prejudice that can no longer be repaired.

The two NFP statements

Prasad’s lawyers placed particular importance upon statements attributed to Kamal Iyer and Dalip Kumar.

The defence argued that the statements related directly to the meaning of “office holder”, which is an element of the offence alleged against Prasad. It also expressed concern that the statements might later be used to challenge the credibility of defence witnesses.

The High Court drew a careful distinction.

The prosecution must disclose material that may assist the defence or undermine the prosecution. But, following R v Brown, it does not ordinarily have a common-law duty to disclose material relevant only to the credibility of a prospective defence witness.

Justice Rajasinghe deliberately avoided deciding what the NFP statements contained or whether the Magistrate’s ruling concerning them was correct.

Instead, he considered both possibilities.

If the statements concerned only the credibility of defence witnesses, the prosecution may not have been obliged to disclose them under the common-law rule discussed in Brown.

If, on the other hand, they could assist Prasad’s defence or undermine the prosecution case, the delay still had not caused irreparable prejudice. They had been disclosed while the first prosecution witness was still giving evidence-in-chief.

The defence therefore had time to examine the statements and use them appropriately.

The same practical conclusion applied to my complaint. It had been disclosed, and Prasad could instruct his lawyers about it before cross-examination began.

No finding of bad faith

Prasad’s lawyers urged the Court to consider the cumulative effect of FICAC’s conduct rather than examining each incident in isolation.

They cited the delayed disclosure, the investigator’s misunderstanding of the disclosure obligation, the prosecutor’s refusal to answer questions about the NFP statements, the amendment of the charge, and the timing of other witness statements.

Justice Rajasinghe found no evidence supporting an inference that FICAC had engaged in a deliberate tactical manoeuvre or acted in bad faith.

He was concerned about the manner in which the disclosure exercise had been conducted. He nevertheless concluded that the prosecutor’s failure to participate in the later review did not amount to deliberate or mala fide conduct, or an abuse of process requiring the “excessive and exorbitant step” of terminating the prosecution.

The judge also rejected the argument based upon the amendment of the charge.

Section 182 of the Criminal Procedure Act permits a magistrate to amend a defective charge before the prosecution case closes. The Magistrate had adjourned the trial after allowing the amendment, providing Prasad with additional time to prepare. There was no submission that the time allowed was insufficient.

As for the delayed delivery of Niumataiwalu’s statement before the voir dire hearing, the judge accepted that it might have created difficulties and required defence counsel to work additional hours. But that inconvenience did not render the trial incapable of being conducted fairly.

What the judgment decides, and what it does not

The High Court ultimately found that the cumulative effect of FICAC’s conduct did not prevent a fair trial or impair Prasad’s defence.

Nor did it amount to such a gross and unconscionable abuse of process that continuing the prosecution would offend the recognised purposes of criminal justice.

The application for a permanent stay was therefore refused and dismissed.

The judgment decides only that the prosecution may continue.

It does not decide that Prasad committed either alleged offence. It does not validate every step taken by FICAC. It does not determine the meaning of “office holder”. It does not determine the contents or weight of the two NFP statements. It does not rule upon the truth or evidential value of my complaint. It does not resolve the Platinum Hotels allegation.

Those issues remain for the Magistrates’ Court, subject to the evidence, legal submissions and any further applications made by the parties.

The High Court also declined to discuss the timing of the general election, which is due before February 2027 and which Prasad intends to contest. Justice Rajasinghe noted that the criminal trial had already begun.

The prosecution does not silence all further journalism

My restraint concerning the Platinum prosecution does not prevent me from reporting upon every other matter involving Prasad.

He remains the leader of a parliamentary political party, a Member of Parliament and a person seeking to contest the next general election. His public statements, political decisions, party policies, parliamentary conduct and statutory obligations remain matters of legitimate public interest.

The existence of one criminal prosecution cannot place every other aspect of a politician’s public life beyond journalistic scrutiny.

I may continue examining public records, including electoral declarations and documents made available by the Fijian Elections Office. I may put questions to Prasad, the Supervisor of Elections, Parliament, FICAC and other relevant authorities. I may report their answers, or record fairly that no answer was received.

But such reporting must be kept separate from the live Platinum proceeding.

I am not prevented from filing further complaints.

Nor does the pending prosecution prevent me from submitting further complaints arising from my analysis of Prasad’s statutory declarations covering the period from 2014 to 2024.

My original complaint does not exhaust every question arising from those declarations.

The High Court judgment contains no order restraining me from examining other publicly available declarations, identifying apparent inconsistencies or omissions, seeking explanations, or referring new material to the appropriate authority.

If my continuing analysis reveals a separate matter that appears to warrant examination, I remain entitled to place that material before FICAC, the Fijian Elections Office or another authority with jurisdiction.

Why is continued restraint necessary? As the person whose complaint is now expressly identified in a court judgment, I must maintain the distinction between explaining what the High Court has decided and arguing the underlying criminal case in public.

I will continue to report accurately from public documents. I will continue to examine Prasad’s statutory declarations from 2014 to 2024. I will continue to put questions to him and to the responsible public authorities.

Where the documentary evidence appears to disclose a separate matter requiring official examination, I reserve the right to submit a further complaint.

But I will not offer an opinion on Prasad’s guilt or innocence while the Platinum case remains before the Magistrates’ Court.

That is not an abandonment of journalism. Nor does it amount to surrendering my right to bring apparently relevant material to the attention of the appropriate authorities.

It is recognition that investigative journalism, lawful complaints, the presumption of innocence and the proper administration of justice must coexist.

The High Court has decided that Prasad can still receive a fair trial.

The task of determining the Platinum charge now returns to the Suva Magistrates Court in which it belongs.

Judgment: Prasad v Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption, Criminal Miscellaneous Case No. HAM 30 of 2026, High Court at Suva, judgment delivered 21 September 2026.

Read Link: https://www.paclii.org/fj/cases/FJHC/2026/599.pdf

From Honiara to Suva: Could Coalition Government use Solomon Islands 2022 precedent to postpone Fiji’s general election in February 2027? For Anthony Regan, constitutional advisers have worked on Solomon Islands

19/9/2026

2023: Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka met with his counterpart from Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare MP at the margins of Special Leaders Retreat Monday 27th Feb 2023. The two leaders acknowledged the longstanding bilateral relations between the two nations and reaffirmed their commitment to work closely to advance regional solidarity and cooperation in mutual areas of interests and priorities.

Anthony Regan’s official biography records constitutional work in Solomon Islands but there is no evidence that he advised its Government to extend Parliament’s life or that he had any involvement in the court proceedings upholding the postponement.

Regan’s official Australian National University profile records that he has worked in several post-conflict constitutional processes, including in Solomon Islands and Fiji.

That experience acquires particular significance as Fiji’s Coalition Government prepares to take the Constitutional Review Commission’s Report and Draft Constitution through Parliament.

It does not, however, establish that Regan advised the former Solomon Islands Government to postpone its 2023 general election. Nor is there presently any evidence that he helped to draft the constitutional amendment which extended the life of the Solomon Islands Parliament, or that he participated in the subsequent litigation.

Those distinctions must be made clear.

The relevant question is not whether Regan personally carried the Solomon Islands precedent to Fiji. It is whether Fiji’s Coalition Government, now supported by constitutional advisers with extensive regional experience, might look to the Solomon Islands judgment as legal and political cover if it decides that the next Fijian general election should be delayed while the proposed new Constitution is considered or introduced.

That possibility should be examined before, rather than after, any postponement is announced.

What happened in Solomon Islands? The Solomon Islands Constitution ordinarily provided for Parliament to continue for four years from the date of its first sitting, unless dissolved earlier.

The national general election was consequently expected in 2023. The Government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare argued, however, that Solomon Islands could not afford to conduct a general election in the same year that it was hosting the Pacific Games.

Instead of simply announcing a postponement by executive decision, Sogavare’s Government introduced the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2022.

The legislation temporarily suspended the ordinary constitutional provision governing the life of Parliament. It provided that the eleventh Parliament would end and stand dissolved on 31 December 2023. The suspension would then terminate, and the ordinary constitutional provision would resume operation.

The stated object of the Bill was explicit: “The purpose of the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2022 is to defer the National General Election of the twelfth Parliament until after the Pacific Games 2023.”

The measure was strongly criticised. Opponents argued that a government should not be permitted to extend its own term merely because conducting an election at the constitutionally appointed time was politically, administratively or financially inconvenient.

The amendment nevertheless passed through Parliament. The election was postponed and eventually held on 17 April 2024.

The constitutional challenge

John Kuku, then Leader of the Independent Members of Parliament, challenged the legality of the extension in the Solomon Islands High Court.

He sought declarations that the constitutional amendment was unconstitutional, invalid and of no effect. The defendants applied to have his claim struck out.

On 6 September 2023, the High Court struck out the proceedings. According to the Solomon Islands Government’s account, the Court found that the claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action and was frivolous and vexatious.

The result was subsequently presented by the Government under the emphatic headline: “No constitutional contravention.”

That headline should not be misunderstood. The judgment did not establish a general principle that a Pacific government may delay an election whenever it finds the timing inconvenient.

The Solomon Islands Parliament had enacted a specific constitutional amendment through the machinery provided by its Constitution. The legal question was therefore whether that amendment itself was constitutionally defective, not whether the Executive possessed some free-standing power to ignore the existing constitutional term.

That distinction is central to any comparison with Fiji.

Could Fiji attempt something similar?

The Coalition Government is now advancing a constitutional process while the country moves closer to its next general election.

The CRC has completed its work. Its Report and the Draft Constitution of the Republic of Fiji 2026 were formally presented to President Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu at State House. The documents are now entering the governmental and parliamentary process.

A previously announced timetable contemplated the possibility of a new constitutional arrangement by 24 December 2026.

That timing immediately raises a difficult question: what happens if the Government says that there is insufficient time to debate, enact and implement a new Constitution before the next election?

It might argue that the election should proceed under the 2013 Constitution and that constitutional reform can continue afterwards. That would be the constitutionally safer course.

It might alternatively argue that an election held under institutions which the proposed Constitution seeks to replace would be wasteful, disruptive or inconsistent with the transition to a new constitutional order.

From there, the political case for postponement would be predictable. The Government could say that electoral legislation must be rewritten; constituencies or parliamentary structures must be reorganised; the Electoral Commission needs more time; voter education must be conducted; or transitional provisions cannot be implemented before the election falls due.

The new Draft Constitution might itself contain transitional provisions extending the existing Parliament or postponing the election.

It is that possibility which makes the Solomon Islands precedent relevant.

But Fiji is not Solomon Islands

The two constitutional systems are not interchangeable. Solomon Islands postponed its election through a temporary constitutional amendment enacted by Parliament under its existing constitutional machinery. The amendment identified the affected provision, prescribed the period of suspension and contained an expiry arrangement.

Fiji’s 2013 Constitution contains its own amendment procedure, principally in sections 159 and 160. That procedure establishes demanding parliamentary and referendum requirements.

The Coalition Government cannot simply cite the Solomon Islands judgment and claim an equivalent authority to extend the life of Fiji’s Parliament.

Before any comparison could assist the Government, it would have to answer several preliminary questions:

Has the 2013 Constitution been lawfully amended according to its own requirements?
Can a new Constitution validly displace the existing Constitution without compliance with sections 159 and 160?
Would transitional provisions extending Parliament’s term amount, in substance, to an unconstitutional avoidance of the electorate?
Can members of Parliament lawfully vote themselves additional time in office under a constitutional process whose legitimacy remains contested?
Would the courts regard such an extension as a valid constitutional act or as an attempt to retain political power beyond the term conferred by the electorate?

The Solomon Islands decision does not answer those questions for Fiji.

Regan’s regional experience makes transparency more important. Regan’s ANU biography states that he has been involved in constitutional or peace processes in Uganda, Bougainville, East Timor, Solomon Islands and Fiji.

That breadth of experience helps to explain why the Coalition Government or the CRC may have sought his assistance.

It also reinforces the need for him to disclose the precise nature of his Fiji assignment.

In July, Fijileaks asked Regan whether he had advised the Government on the constitutional amendment threshold, whether the 2013 Constitution could lawfully be replaced without compliance with its amendment procedure, and what safeguards protected the independence of his advice.

He neither acknowledged nor answered those questions.

One additional question must now be asked: Has Regan advised the Coalition Government, the Attorney-General’s Office or the CRC about postponing Fiji’s next general election, extending the life of the present Parliament, or using transitional provisions in the Draft Constitution to achieve either result?

A second question follows: Has the Solomon Islands constitutional amendment or the High Court decision in Kuku’s case been discussed as a possible precedent for Fiji?

There is presently no evidence that Regan advised the Sogavare Government on the Solomon Islands postponement. It would therefore be wrong to attribute that decision to him merely because his biography records work in that country.

But his silence about the scope of his Fiji assignment leaves unanswered whether his regional constitutional experience, including his familiarity with Solomon Islands, has informed any advice given on Fiji’s electoral timetable.

A court decision is not a political blank cheque

The Solomon Islands case may appear attractive to a government seeking more time. Parliament amended the Constitution, the election was delayed, and the High Court rejected the challenge.

But the legal victory did not erase the democratic controversy.

The power to determine the date on which citizens may remove their government goes to the heart of representative democracy. When sitting members extend their own tenure, they are direct beneficiaries of the constitutional decision they are making.

Even where the necessary parliamentary votes can be assembled, legality and democratic legitimacy are not necessarily the same thing.

A government elected for a constitutionally defined term should not receive additional time in office merely because it has embarked upon a constitutional project which it cannot complete before that term expires.

Nor should constitutional reform become the instrument through which the people’s right to vote is deferred.

Fiji needs an unequivocal assurance

The Coalition Government should now state plainly whether the next general election will be held within the timetable prescribed by the 2013 Constitution.

It should also disclose whether the CRC Report, the Draft Constitution or any transitional proposal contemplates:

extending the present Parliament’s term;
postponing the dissolution of Parliament;
delaying the issue of the election writ;
holding the election under a new timetable; or
allowing the present Government to remain in office while new constitutional arrangements are implemented.

If none of these proposals exists, the Government should have no difficulty giving an unequivocal assurance.

If such a proposal does exist, it must be published immediately and subjected to public, parliamentary and judicial scrutiny.

The Solomon Islands judgment cannot be treated as a transferable licence to postpone Fiji’s election. It arose from a particular amendment to a different Constitution, enacted within a different legal framework.

Fiji’s Constitution belongs to the people. So does their right to decide, at the constitutionally appointed time, who governs them.

Questions for Anthony Regan on his role in Fiji’s constitutional review, copied to Siromi Turaqa and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka

Anthony Regan, Bula

Recent public statements by Acting Attorney-General Siromi Turaga indicate that you are working with constitutional drafters in the Attorney-General’s Office on a proposed new Constitution for Fiji. In the interests of transparency and informed public debate, Fijileaks respectfully invites you to respond to the following questions:

When were you first approached by the Coalition Government, or by any representative of the Government, regarding participation in Fiji’s constitutional review process?
Who formally invited you to participate, and under what authority was that invitation made?
What is your official role? Are you serving as a consultant, adviser, constitutional expert, member of a drafting team, or in another capacity?
Are you working under a written contract? If so, will that contract or your terms of reference be made public?
Are you being remunerated for your work? If so, who is funding your engagement, and what are the financial arrangements?
When did you commence work on the constitutional review?
How many visits have you made to Fiji in connection with this assignment?
Have you already contributed to the drafting of any constitutional provisions? If so, which areas of the proposed Constitution have you been asked to advise upon?
Have you prepared any reports, memoranda, discussion papers or draft constitutional text? If so, will these documents be released to the public?
To whom do you report in the course of your work - the Acting Attorney-General, Cabinet, the Constitutional Review Commission, or another body?
Have you met Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka regarding the constitutional review? If so, how many times and what matters were discussed?
Have you consulted any political parties, civil society organisations, trade unions, faith groups, business organisations or community representatives outside Government?
How do you respond to concerns that, because you have publicly criticised significant aspects of the 2013 Constitution over many years, your appointment may create a perception that the outcome of the review has been substantially predetermined?
Do you consider yourself able to approach the drafting process with complete impartiality despite your previously published academic criticisms of the 2013 Constitution?
In your view, what aspects of the 2013 Constitution continue to serve Fiji well and should be retained?
Which provisions of the 2013 Constitution do you believe require amendment, and why?
Have you advised Government regarding the constitutional immunity provisions? If so, what principles have guided your advice?
Have you discussed the constitutional amendment threshold contained in section 160 of the 2013 Constitution with Government?
Have you offered advice on whether the existing Constitution can lawfully be replaced without complying with its amendment procedures?
Will the Draft Constitution be published before it is presented to Parliament, allowing sufficient time for public scrutiny and comment?
Do you believe Fiji should adopt an entirely new Constitution or amend the existing 2013 Constitution? What constitutional principles support your preferred approach?
What safeguards are in place to ensure that your advice remains independent of the political objectives of the Government of the day?
If your recommendations are not accepted by Government, will you disclose the nature of your advice once the constitutional process has concluded?
Looking back, do you stand by your previous public criticisms of the 2013 Constitution, or have any of your views evolved?
Finally, do you accept that, because constitutions belong to the people rather than governments, the public is entitled to full transparency regarding the identity, role and influence of everyone involved in drafting Fiji’s next Constitution?

Fijileaks invited Regan to respond in the interests of promoting an informed, balanced and transparent national discussion on constitutional reform.

He never acknowledged the correspondence and did not answer any of the questions.

The Draft Constitution has now been completed. Regan’s role has been officially acknowledged. His opportunity to answer remains open.

The High Court today (6 September 2023) ruled that the Claim filed by the Leader of the Independent Members was frivolous and vexatious, discloses no reasonable cause of action and is an abuse of the Court process and accordingly struck out the Claim High Court in the civil case no. 313 of 2023.

In delivering his ruling, His Lordship the Chief Justice Sir Albert Palmer held that contrary to the assertions of the Claimant, the interpretation of section 61(3) of the Constitution required Parliament to pass the Constitutional (Amendment) 2022 Act on both the second and third readings with a majority of two-thirds of Members of Parliament.

The High Court held that the contention that there should be two separate readings on the third reading was simply not what the Constitution intended.

In giving out the judgement, Chief Justice Sir Albert Palmer also held that the Claimant as a matter of procedure failed to object during the process in which constitution (amendment bill) 2022 was tabled to suspend section 73 (3) of the constitution to allow parliament to continue till 31st December 2023. The Claimant instead chose to participate in the Parliamentary proceedings in which the Claimant voted “no” in both readings.

“Having failed to make such objection he is estopped from coming to this court for relief as he cannot demonstrate that his rights under the constitution had been contravened and his interests affected or likely to be affected by such contraventions”, the Chief Justice stated.

Chief Justice Albert Palmer stated that the parliament is the right forum to hear the claimant’s issue, and should the claimant raised the matter it could have been addressed there and then.

The Chief Justice added that “…even if there is to be any relief given the most this court can do would be to refer the matter back to Parliament to resolve the issue”.

The Chief Justice further held that should the claimant raised his belief that the process of passing the constitutional (amendment bill) 2022 has affected his rights, then the claimant’s rights would have been taken to the court for redress.

With regard to the issue of delay, the Chief Justice stated that “the issue of failing to object is related to this issue of delay or sleeping on his rights if any…any litigant must be vigilant and run to the courts where that is required”.

The Chief Justice quoted the maxim “the vigilant, not the sleeping, are aided by the laws” adding that “even in the event that the application is granted in his favor, time has lapsed, it took the claimant not less than 10 months (293 days) before having his claim filed in court on 28 June 2023…”

“The time frame is simply an impossibility now and so raises the practical question as to what if any purpose to be achieved by this claim,” Sir Albert Palmer stated.

The Attorney-General having received the judgment and briefed the Executive has received new instructions.

“After briefing the Executive, I now hold instructions to seek declaratory Orders in the High Court of Solomon Islands whether Members of Parliament who voted ‘No’ on September 6, 2022, were effectively on 15th May, 2023, no longer Members of Parliament and whether having ceased being Members of Parliament on 15th May, 2023, were no longer entitled to receive benefits accrued by Members of Parliament and that any benefits acquired thereafter from the state shall be refunded in full to the State”.

The Claimant was represented by Counsel Billy Titiulu whilst the Hon. Speaker was represented by Timothy Matthews KC and the Prime Minister and the Governor-General were represented by the Attorney-General.

Australian constitutional adviser Anthony REGAN never answered our questions about his role. Now CRC Report and Draft Constitution bearing the results of that work have reached the President and Parliament of Fiji

18/9/2026

The official State House photograph shows Anthony Regan (circled in red) among those present for the formal presentation.
*Regan stood with commissioners and other advisers at State House when the completed documents were formally presented, but twenty-five questions sent to him in July about his appointment, remuneration, independence and influence remain unanswered

"Fiji’s Acting Attorney-General Siromi Turaga says constitutional drafters and consultant Professor Anthony Regan are already working from his office as the Coalition Government pushes to have a new draft Constitution ready before 1 September 2026." - 21 July 2026.

Australian constitutional adviser Anthony Regan never acknowledged or answered twenty-five questions sent to him by Fijileaks on Wednesday 29 July concerning his role in preparing Fiji’s proposed new Constitution.

Those questions were sent after Acting Attorney-General Siromi Turaga disclosed that Regan and constitutional drafters were already working from the Attorney-General’s Office.

The constitutional process has since moved decisively forward.

The Constitutional Review Commission has completed its Report on the 2013 Constitution and produced the Draft Constitution of the Republic of Fiji 2026. The documents were formally presented to President Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu at State House, where Regan was photographed standing with members of the Commission and others associated with the process.

Following the presentation by CRC chair Sevuloni Valenitabua, the President handed a copy of the Report to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. The Government announced that it would proceed through Cabinet and then to Parliament.

The Office of the Attorney-General expressly acknowledged the contribution of three constitutional and legislative experts who supported the Commission’s work: Anthony Regan, Kathrene Le Roy and Fiona Leonard.

Regan’s involvement is therefore no longer a matter of speculation. The Government itself has identified him as an expert who supported the CRC’s work, and his presence at State House places him visibly among those associated with the completed Report and Draft Constitution.

Yet the nature and extent of his contribution remain undisclosed.

Questions sent before the drafting was completed

When Fijileaks wrote to Regan in July, the questions were intended to establish what role he had been given before the drafting process reached its conclusion.

We asked who engaged him, when he began work, whether he had a written contract, whether he was being paid, who funded his engagement, to whom he reported and whether he had already drafted or advised upon particular constitutional provisions.

We also asked whether he had advised the Government on the immunity provisions, the amendment requirements in section 160 of the 2013 Constitution and the legality of replacing that Constitution without complying with its own amendment procedure.

Regan was invited to clarify whether he was working for the Government, the Attorney-General’s Office, Cabinet, the CRC or some other body.

He did not acknowledge the correspondence. He did not answer any of the questions.
The completion of the Draft Constitution makes that silence more—not less—important.

The work about which Fijileaks questioned him was not abandoned. It culminated in a completed constitutional document which may profoundly alter Fiji’s system of government, Parliament, institutions, rights and electoral arrangements.

The public is therefore entitled to know what Regan recommended, what provisions he helped to formulate and how much influence his advice had upon the finished text.

From outside commentator to constitutional adviser

Regan is an Australian constitutional lawyer and academic whose work has concentrated on constitutional development, conflict resolution and political reform in the Pacific and elsewhere.

His Australian National University biography records his involvement in constitutional or peace processes in Uganda, Bougainville, East Timor, Solomon Islands and Fiji.

He has also written extensively about Fiji’s 2013 Constitution. In a paper co-authored with Coel Kirkby and Romitesh Kant, he criticised several features of the constitutional order. In August 2024, he publicly argued that the 2013 Constitution required “wholesale change”.

Regan was entitled to express those views. Academic freedom includes the right to criticise constitutions, governments and political institutions.

But a scholar commenting from outside the constitutional process occupies a different position from an adviser helping to produce the document intended to replace the Constitution he has criticised.

Once Regan moved from academic commentary to participation in the official process, questions about his appointment, instructions, remuneration and influence became legitimate matters of public interest.

Was the outcome already contemplated?

One of the questions sent to Regan concerned the perception that the outcome of the review might have been substantially predetermined.

That concern did not arise simply because Regan had criticised the 2013 Constitution. It arose because a known advocate of wholesale constitutional change was brought into a process which has now produced an entirely new Draft Constitution.

A review does not necessarily require replacement. It may conclude that particular provisions should be amended, that institutional safeguards should be strengthened or that parts of the existing Constitution should be retained.

A drafting process directed towards producing a new Constitution begins from a different premise.

The public is entitled to know when the decision was made to move from reviewing the 2013 Constitution to writing its replacement. It is also entitled to know who made that decision and what part Regan and the other experts played in it.

Did the CRC independently decide that an entirely new Constitution was required?
Did the Government instruct the drafters to prepare one?
Did Regan recommend wholesale replacement?
Or was that destination understood before public consultations had been completed?

Neither Regan nor the Coalition Government has supplied a satisfactory public account.

Who instructed the experts?

The Acting Attorney-General’s statement says that Regan, Le Roy and Leonard supported the Commission’s work. It does not disclose who selected them, who formally appointed them or the legal and contractual basis upon which they worked.

Nor does it explain whether they reported to the CRC, the Acting Attorney-General, the Attorney-General’s Office, Cabinet or the Prime Minister.

That distinction matters.

If the experts were appointed by and accountable to the CRC, the public should be shown the relevant terms of reference and contractual arrangements.

If they were appointed by the Government but assigned to assist the CRC, the possibility of competing lines of authority must be addressed.

If they were working from the Attorney-General’s Office while advising an ostensibly independent Commission, the public is entitled to know how the independence of their work was protected.

The Government cannot invoke the independence of the CRC while withholding the institutional arrangements governing those who helped write its Draft Constitution.

What did Regan draft? The most important unanswered question is what Regan actually contributed to the finished document.

Did he prepare draft chapters, clauses or transitional provisions?
Did he advise on the structure of Parliament, the proposed Senate, the electoral system, the judiciary, fundamental rights, the role of religion, the position of the Great Council of Chiefs or the constitutional amendment procedure?
Did he advise on the immunity provisions associated with Fiji’s coups?
Did he examine whether the 2013 Constitution could lawfully be replaced without satisfying sections 159 and 160?
Did he recommend the legal mechanism by which the Draft Constitution could be adopted?
Did he advise on the timing of the next general election or on any transitional provision capable of extending the life of the present Parliament?

These are not demands for confidential personal information. They concern advice given in the preparation of the supreme law under which every Fijian may be governed.

Regan’s silence can no longer be dismissed as premature

Regan might have argued in July that it was too early to discuss unfinished work. He did not make that argument because he did not reply at all.

That explanation is no longer available.

The CRC’s work is finished. Its Report and Draft Constitution have been delivered. The Government has publicly acknowledged Regan’s contribution. He appeared with those connected to the process at State House.

The constitutional adviser can now tell the people of Fiji what work he performed.

If confidentiality provisions prevent him from disclosing particular advice, he can identify those restrictions and explain who imposed them.

If the Government altered or rejected his recommendations, he can say whether his eventual ability to discuss the advice is limited by contract.

If he believes his role was independent, he can explain the safeguards which protected that independence.

Continued silence serves only to deepen uncertainty about a process which should command public confidence.

“Do not speculate” is not an answer

The Acting Attorney-General urged the public to refrain from speculation about the contents of the Report and Draft Constitution until the Government had properly considered them.

But secrecy produces speculation.

The Government has declined to release the completed documents immediately, while at the same time asking citizens to trust that the process has been independent, consultative and constitutionally legitimate.

That trust cannot be demanded. It must be earned through disclosure.

The public should not have to wait until political decisions have been made before seeing the Draft Constitution intended to govern it. Nor should Parliament be asked to consider the document before citizens have been given sufficient time to read, debate and challenge it.

Publication after the Government has settled its position would not constitute meaningful participation. It would allow public comment only after those exercising power had already decided what they were prepared to accept.

Constitutions belong to the people

A constitution does not belong to the government which happens to be in office when it is drafted.

It belongs neither to the Prime Minister nor to Cabinet; neither to the Attorney-General’s Office nor to the CRC; neither to foreign experts nor to domestic political parties.

It belongs to the people whose rights it regulates and in whose name public power is exercised.

That principle demands transparency about the identity, authority and influence of every person involved in preparing the constitutional text.

Regan was given an opportunity to provide that transparency in July. He did not take it.

For the public record, Fijileaks reproduces below the twenty-five questions sent to him. They remain unanswered, and the invitation to respond remains open.

Questions for Anthony Regan on his role in Fiji’s constitutional review, copied to Siromi Turaqa and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka

Anthony Regan, Bula

Recent public statements by Acting Attorney-General Siromi Turaga indicate that you are working with constitutional drafters in the Attorney-General’s Office on a proposed new Constitution for Fiji. In the interests of transparency and informed public debate, Fijileaks respectfully invites you to respond to the following questions:

When were you first approached by the Coalition Government, or by any representative of the Government, regarding participation in Fiji’s constitutional review process?
Who formally invited you to participate, and under what authority was that invitation made?
What is your official role? Are you serving as a consultant, adviser, constitutional expert, member of a drafting team, or in another capacity?
Are you working under a written contract? If so, will that contract or your terms of reference be made public?
Are you being remunerated for your work? If so, who is funding your engagement, and what are the financial arrangements?
When did you commence work on the constitutional review?
How many visits have you made to Fiji in connection with this assignment?
Have you already contributed to the drafting of any constitutional provisions? If so, which areas of the proposed Constitution have you been asked to advise upon?
Have you prepared any reports, memoranda, discussion papers or draft constitutional text? If so, will these documents be released to the public?
To whom do you report in the course of your work - the Acting Attorney-General, Cabinet, the Constitutional Review Commission, or another body?
Have you met Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka regarding the constitutional review? If so, how many times and what matters were discussed?
Have you consulted any political parties, civil society organisations, trade unions, faith groups, business organisations or community representatives outside Government?
How do you respond to concerns that, because you have publicly criticised significant aspects of the 2013 Constitution over many years, your appointment may create a perception that the outcome of the review has been substantially predetermined?
Do you consider yourself able to approach the drafting process with complete impartiality despite your previously published academic criticisms of the 2013 Constitution?
In your view, what aspects of the 2013 Constitution continue to serve Fiji well and should be retained?
Which provisions of the 2013 Constitution do you believe require amendment, and why?
Have you advised Government regarding the constitutional immunity provisions? If so, what principles have guided your advice?
Have you discussed the constitutional amendment threshold contained in section 160 of the 2013 Constitution with Government?
Have you offered advice on whether the existing Constitution can lawfully be replaced without complying with its amendment procedures?
Will the Draft Constitution be published before it is presented to Parliament, allowing sufficient time for public scrutiny and comment?
Do you believe Fiji should adopt an entirely new Constitution or amend the existing 2013 Constitution? What constitutional principles support your preferred approach?
What safeguards are in place to ensure that your advice remains independent of the political objectives of the Government of the day?
If your recommendations are not accepted by Government, will you disclose the nature of your advice once the constitutional process has concluded?
Looking back, do you stand by your previous public criticisms of the 2013 Constitution, or have any of your views evolved?
Finally, do you accept that, because constitutions belong to the people rather than governments, the public is entitled to full transparency regarding the identity, role and influence of everyone involved in drafting Fiji’s next Constitution?

Chieftaincy versus Democracy: Twenty-six years later, has Fiji learnt anything? Jese Saukuru’s declaration that his political future rests with his vanua and chiefs, forces us to ask about role of chiefs in democracy

17/9/2026

Saukuru

In July 2000, during the George Speight coup, I warned that political chiefs and ethno-nationalists were silencing ordinary iTaukei and claiming authority to determine the fate of Fijians and non-Fijians alike. Jese Saukuru’s declaration that his political future rests with his vanua and chiefs, and the proposed stand-alone legislation for the Great Council of Chiefs, forces us to ask whether that warning remains relevant in 2026.

Twenty-six years ago, as George Speight and his armed supporters held Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and members of his government hostage in Parliament, I wrote an analysis for Fiji's Daily Post under the heading: ‘The Fijian commoners will be imprisoned by George Speight and the chiefs’ escapades: one dead, the other powerless to be born.’

The argument was controversial then. It will remain controversial now.

I argued that Speight’s overthrow of Fiji’s democratically elected government had not merely removed the country’s first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister. It had also stripped ordinary iTaukei of their democratic power.

Speight and his supporters purported to act for indigenous Fijians. But their resort to force silenced the very people in whose name they claimed to speak. Having displaced the elected government, they turned to the Great Council of Chiefs to decide the political future of the country.

Once again, chiefs were being asked to determine the fate of iTaukei and non-iTaukei alike.

The uncomfortable question in 2000 was whether the chiefly establishment would protect constitutional democracy or allow itself to become the vehicle through which un-elected men converted violence, racial nationalism and political ambition into authority.

The uncomfortable question in 2026 is not identical. There are no armed men holding a government hostage inside Parliament. But the underlying conflict between inherited authority and democratic citizenship has returned.

Minister for Youth and Sports Jese Saukuru says his decision on whether to contest the next general election will depend upon his vanua and chiefs. At the same time, the Coalition Government is moving towards stand-alone legislation for the Great Council of Chiefs.

Fiji must therefore ask: where does legitimate respect for chiefly authority end, and where does democratic political authority begin?

What I argued in July 2000

My analysis traced the political role of Fiji’s chiefly establishment from the colonial period to the Speight coup.

I recalled a private letter sent to the Colonial Office in London by Governor Sir George O’Brien in December 1897. Writing about Britain’s policy of governing Fiji through the chiefs, O’Brien compared the relationship to that of a circus showman and his trained animal.

His brutally revealing conclusion was: ‘After many years of governing Fiji through the chiefs we are able to make them do anything we like.’

The offensive language belonged to the colonial governor. But the institutional point was unmistakable.

British recognition of chiefly authority was not merely an innocent act of cultural preservation. The colonial administration reshaped and incorporated chiefly power into a machinery of indirect rule. Chiefs became intermediaries between the government and ordinary iTaukei.

That system protected important aspects of indigenous land and communal organisation. But it also enabled the colonial government to administer the iTaukei population through a hierarchy which ordinary people had little democratic power to challenge.

The system was neither uniform nor accepted without resistance. The Deed of Cession did not command universal support, particularly among communities in western and central Viti Levu. Some regarded Cession as bringing not only British authority but also the domination of eastern chiefs.

Colonial rule helped create what scholars later described as the bureaucratic chief: a traditional leader whose authority became intertwined with the administrative state.

The result was the creation of a separate system of iTaukei administration, a state within the colonial state. Chiefs were never a single political bloc. The 2000 analysis did not contend that every chief was hostile to democracy or that all chiefly authority was illegitimate. Such a claim would have been historically false.

Chiefs have differed sharply among themselves. Some have acted as stabilising national figures. Others have supported multiracial government and constitutional compromise. Some have resisted extremism. Others have entered party politics or allowed traditional authority to be employed for partisan purposes.

Nor have ordinary iTaukei ever formed a single obedient political bloc.

Challenges to the established chiefly order emerged repeatedly. Apolosi Nawai challenged colonial economic and political authority. Apisai Tora articulated western resentment towards the dominance of eastern chiefly interests. Ratu Osea Gavidi and the Western United Front later gave organised political expression to similar grievances.

Sakeasi Butadroka, notwithstanding the racial politics with which his name became associated, distinguished between traditional respect and political obedience. He could recognise a person’s chiefly status while challenging that same person politically.

That distinction remains vital.

One may respect a chief within the customary order without surrendering one’s political judgment to that chief.

Dr Timoci Bavadra showed another way

The late Dr Timoci Bavadra expressed the principle with particular clarity before the 1987 election.

Bavadra respected his traditional relationships with the Tui Vuda and Nakelo. But he rejected the proposition that chiefly authority dictated his political allegiance. His loyalty within the vanua remained intact; his political beliefs were his own.

That was not an attack upon iTaukei culture. It was an attempt to reconcile tradition with citizenship.

Bavadra understood what Fiji still struggles to accept: a person can honour a chief without voting for the chief, the chief’s relative or the chief’s preferred political party.

A commoner who disagrees with a chief is not necessarily rejecting the vanua. A woman who challenges a chiefly decision is not abandoning her culture. A young person who votes differently from village elders is exercising a constitutional right, not committing an act of traditional rebellion.

The ballot must remain personal, equal and secret.

The chiefly establishment and national politics

At independence in 1970, political leadership remained concentrated largely in the eastern chiefly establishment associated with the Alliance Party.

The Great Council of Chiefs acquired a formal constitutional role. It nominated members of the Senate and enjoyed special influence over legislation affecting iTaukei land and customary rights.

Indo-Fijian leaders had accepted this arrangement as part of the negotiated independence settlement. But political conflict inevitably followed when criticism of Alliance Party leaders was interpreted as an attack upon chiefs and, by extension, upon the iTaukei community itself.

The distinction between a chief, a party politician and a national office-holder became blurred.

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara himself once described the multiple capacities in which he operated: citizen, traditional chief, party leader and Prime Minister. The difficulty was not that one man occupied those different positions. The difficulty was deciding which authority was being exercised at any particular moment, and whether political criticism was being improperly converted into cultural disrespect.

That problem has never entirely disappeared.

A politician who invokes chiefly status gains an advantage unavailable to an ordinary candidate. A critic may be accused not merely of opposing a policy but of insulting the vanua. A political disagreement can then be recast as a cultural offence.

Democratic accountability becomes extremely difficult when questioning a politician is treated as questioning tradition itself.

The warning from 1982

The conflict did not begin with the coups of 1987 or 2000.

After the bitterly contested 1982 general election, the Ra Provincial Council proposed that the offices of Governor-General and Prime Minister should be reserved for indigenous Fijians. It also proposed a racially weighted parliamentary arrangement.

The Great Council of Chiefs endorsed the resolutions.

To Indo-Fijians, the episode presented the GCC not as an impartial custodian of indigenous culture but as an institution willing to promote racial political supremacy.

The Fiji Sun warned at the time that the proposal could transform Fiji from a democracy into an autocracy or dictatorship and march the country backwards.

Five years later, the first military coup took place.

History does not move in a perfectly straight line, and it would be wrong to claim that one GCC resolution caused the events of 1987. But the political climate in which racial entitlement was elevated above electoral choice helped prepare the ground.

When democratic outcomes become acceptable only if they produce the ‘right’ ethnic or chiefly leadership, elections cease to have any secure meaning.

George Speight exploited the contradiction

Speight presented the 2000 takeover as an assertion of indigenous rights. Yet he was not authorised by the iTaukei electorate to overthrow the government.

No national vote empowered him to enter Parliament with armed men. No referendum instructed him to hold ministers hostage. No democratic process authorised his supporters to remove the Constitution.

The coup-makers nevertheless claimed to represent the indigenous people as a collective body. That claim depended upon treating the iTaukei as though they possessed one political will capable of being declared by self-appointed nationalists and ratified by chiefs.

Ordinary iTaukei were reduced from citizens to followers.

That was why I argued in July 2000 that the coup had stripped ordinary iTaukei Fijians of their power. If chiefly and nationalist elites could speak conclusively on their behalf, there was no need to ask how individual iTaukei had voted or what they believed.

Their democratic citizenship had been swallowed by an invented communal voice.

Is the 2000 argument still relevant in 2026? Yes but it requires an important qualification.

Fiji in 2026 is not Fiji in July 2000.

The present Government was formed through parliamentary processes. The restored GCC has not seized power. Saukuru has not advocated a coup, racial exclusion or violence. His statement may amount only to a respectful promise to consult his traditional community.

It would therefore be unfair to place Saukuru in the same category as Speight or to describe the restored GCC as the institution which confronted Fiji during the hostage crisis.

But the constitutional principle at stake remains remarkably similar.

Who has the right to determine political representation?

Is it the individual citizen, exercising a secret ballot? Is it the political party applying transparent selection criteria? Or is it an unelected hierarchy claiming to express the collective will of a vanua, province or ethnic community?

When Saukuru says his political future will be decided by his vanua and chiefs, he revives the very ambiguity about which I wrote 26 years ago.

Does he mean that he will respectfully seek their advice? Or does he mean that they possess the authority to decide whether he may present himself to the national electorate?

The first is culturally understandable. The second is democratically troubling.

Which vanua, and whose voice?

The word vanua carries deep cultural, spiritual and communal meaning. But it cannot be treated as though it automatically produces a single political opinion.

Within every vanua there are differences between chiefs and commoners, women and men, young and old, rural and urban residents, wealthy families and struggling households.

There are also differences among provinces and confederacies. Fiji’s chiefly order has never been a perfectly uniform national system. Historical authority, customary structures and relationships with the colonial and post-colonial state have varied considerably.

Western political challenges to eastern chiefly dominance are part of Fiji’s history. So too are disputes over titles, boundaries, succession and representation.

Who, then, determines what ‘the vanua’ has decided?

Is there a vote? Are women equally heard? May a commoner openly oppose the preferred position of a chief? Are young people consulted? Is disagreement recorded, or is silence interpreted as consent?

A minister cannot invoke the vanua as a source of authority without answering whose voice within that vanua is being heard.

The Great Council of Chiefs in 2026

The same questions must be addressed in the proposed stand-alone legislation for the GCC.

The Council may have an important role in protecting iTaukei culture, customary institutions, indigenous knowledge, language and communal interests. Fiji need not destroy traditional institutions in order to preserve democracy.

But Parliament must define the GCC’s boundaries.

Will it be a cultural and advisory body, or will it acquire political influence over government, constitutional reform and national appointments? Will it speak on matters directly affecting iTaukei customary interests, or will it presume to speak for the whole country?

Will its representatives be accountable to the iTaukei people, or only to the chiefly structures which select them? What meaningful place will be provided for women, young people and non-chiefly iTaukei? How will provincial differences be reconciled? How will political neutrality be enforced?

The Government’s 2023 GCC review itself recommended an independent and politically neutral Council. That recommendation should not be treated as ceremonial language. It must be translated into enforceable statutory safeguards.

A politically neutral GCC should not endorse candidates or parties. It should not permit its meetings to become platforms for electoral mobilisation. Its members should disclose political and financial interests. Its public funding should be fully audited. Its advice to government should be published except where genuinely confidential customary matters are involved.

Most importantly, the Council must not be used to convert chiefly prestige into political command.

Commoners must not again become spectators

My central concern in 2000 was not hostility towards chiefs. It was the political fate of ordinary iTaukei that I grew up with in Tailevu and the four storey Raiwaqa-Raiwai block of flats.

Too often, arguments advanced in the name of indigenous paramountcy have benefited a small political and chiefly elite while leaving commoners facing poverty, poor housing, limited educational opportunities, unemployment, HIV epidemic, and inadequate public services.

Invoking the vanua does not itself improve village water supplies. Chiefly speeches do not create employment. Political appeals to indigenous unity cannot substitute for audited expenditure, competent administration and measurable development.

The condition of ordinary iTaukei must be judged by material outcomes, not by the number of traditional institutions restored in their name.

If the GCC is to justify public funding and statutory recognition, it must demonstrate how it improves the lives of the people. It cannot rely indefinitely upon historical prestige.

Nor should political leaders hide behind chiefs to avoid personal responsibility. Saukuru must account for his ministerial performance and decide whether he wishes to seek another mandate. Chiefs cannot make that decision for him, and they cannot answer to the national electorate on his behalf.

One dead, the other still struggling to be born

The phrase I used in 2000 - ‘one dead, the other powerless to be born’ - described a political society trapped between two systems.

The old order could no longer command unquestioned obedience. Yet a fully democratic order, founded upon equal individual citizenship, had repeatedly been prevented from taking root.

Twenty-six years later, that struggle has not ended.

Fiji has held elections and embraced a common national franchise. Yet politicians continue to invoke race, province, church and chiefly authority when convenient. Traditional institutions remain vulnerable to party-political capture. Ordinary citizens are still told, directly or indirectly, that communal loyalty should shape their political choices.

The question is not whether chiefs should exist. They do, and they remain important to many iTaukei.

The question is whether chiefly authority should carry privileged political power over citizens who did not elect it.

Tradition deserves respect. Indigenous culture deserves protection. Chiefs may offer counsel, preserve customary knowledge and help mediate disputes.

But elected government must derive its authority from citizens, and every citizen must remain free to disagree with a chief without forfeiting his or her place in the vanua.

That was the principle at the heart of my warning in July 2000. It remains relevant in September 2026.

If anything, Saukuru’s statement and the proposed stand-alone GCC legislation make it necessary to repeat it: A chief may lead within the customary order. A voter alone must decide at the ballot box.

Source: Victor Lal’s July 2000 analysis, republished by Fijileaks in 2015

www.fijileaks.com/home/dou-lako-tani-out-you-go-long-before-bainimarama-sent-the-chiefs-packing-a-colonial-governor-had-once-suspended-gcc-1905-to-1912-governor-im-thurn-thought-chiefs-were-a-regressive-force-for-the-itaukei

BOOTED OUT. Moshim Muktar Khan shown the door but who let him in? The Coalition Government must reveal who appointed KHAN as the Ba Special Administrator and what criminal checks were carried out on him

16/9/2026

An email dated 2 September 2026, accompanied by supporting documents, raised the matter with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and other senior authorities, including NFP leader Biman Prasad. While Fijileaks* was independently examining the material, news arrived that Khan had been removed as Ba Town Council Special Administrator.
Right photo: With Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in February 2024. Khan was actively campaigning for PAP in Ba during the 2022 election.

LOCAL Government Minister Maciu Nalumisa

On 2 September 2026, Fijileaks received a copy of an email addressed to Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and copied to other relevant authorities. The email was accompanied by documents raising serious questions about Moshim Muktar Khan, his reported criminal conviction and his suitability to serve as chair of the Ba Town Council’s special administrators.

We began examining the documents and attempting to establish the circumstances in which Khan had been appointed.

Before that investigation was completed, news reached us that Local Government Minister Maciu Nalumisa had relieved Khan of his responsibilities with effect from 9 September 2026.

We do not claim, without further evidence, that the 2 September email caused Khan’s removal. The timing nevertheless demands an explanation.

Did the email trigger the Minister’s “due enquiry”? Were the Prime Minister, the Minister for Local Government or ministry officials previously unaware of the information contained in it? If so, why had the Government’s appointment and vetting procedures failed to uncover it before Khan was placed in charge of municipal administration in Ba?

Khan was removed following allegations concerning a previous criminal conviction and questions about whether that conviction had been disclosed. He was convicted on 10 March 2023 and received a four-year suspended sentence for assault occasioning actual bodily harm involving his legally married wife. A Domestic Violence Restraining Order was issued against him.

Khan was appointed chair of the Ba Town Council’s special administrators in January 2024, less than a year after the reported conviction.

If those facts are correct, his removal is not evidence of an appointment system working properly. It is evidence that the system may have failed at the point when it mattered most.

The Government cannot dispose of the controversy simply by removing Khan. It must explain who recommended him, who approved his appointment, what declarations he was required to complete, and what background checks, if any, were undertaken.

The Minister says Khan’s removal followed “due enquiry and careful consideration of all relevant information”. The public is entitled to know when that enquiry began and what prompted it.

Did it begin only after the email of 2 September reached the Prime Minister and other authorities? If not, when did it begin? What information had already come to the Ministry’s attention? Who examined it, and why has the resulting report not been released?

A government cannot convert a belated removal into a display of administrative virtue while concealing the circumstances of the original appointment.

The Documents Sent To Prime Minister Rabuka

Fijileaks is publishing the relevant documents which accompanied the email dated 2 September 2026. We have redacted dates of birth, tax-identification details, telephone numbers, email addresses and the identity of Khan’s wife. Those particulars are unnecessary to the public-interest questions raised by the documents.

We are publishing the material to test the integrity of a public appointment, not to intrude upon the privacy of Khan’s wife or expose unrelated personal information.

The documents raise questions which Prime Minister Rabuka, Minister Nalumisa and the Ministry of Local Government must answer:

When did each of them first become aware of the reported conviction?
Did the 2 September email initiate or influence the enquiry which preceded Khan’s removal?
Was Khan required to disclose previous convictions or restraining orders?
Did he make such a disclosure?
Was a police clearance obtained before his appointment?
Who recommended Khan for the position?
Who made or approved the final appointment?
What qualifications and integrity criteria were applied?
Was the position advertised, and were other candidates considered?
Will the Government publish the appointment file and the findings of its enquiry?

Khan must also be afforded an opportunity to respond to the documents and to explain what information he supplied when he was considered for appointment.

His removal may have ended his tenure. It has not ended the public-interest investigation.

The question is no longer merely why Khan was removed. It is why he was appointed, and whether he would have remained in office had the email and supporting documents not reached the Prime Minister and other authorities on 2 September 2026.

BEATEN UP For NOT Making Breakfast for future Special Administrator

NEXT INSTALMENTS:

*From Bainimarama to Rabuka, the special-administrator scandal survives

Khan’s removal exposes a system built upon secrecy and political control. For more than a decade, Fijileaks has questioned the qualifications, political connections and conduct of government-appointed municipal administrators. Moshim Muktar Khan’s removal from the Ba Town Council shows that the Coalition Government retained the system it once condemned, without installing even the most elementary safeguards

*Removed from the FNPF Board but still running Sigatoka administrator?

Finance Minister Esrom Immanuel revoked Adish Naidu’s FNPF appointment following Reserve Bank advice. Yet the Local Government Ministry continues to list him as chair of the Sigatoka Town Council’s special administrators. Minister Maciu Nalumisa must explain the Government’s apparently contradictory standards: why does Adish Naidu remain a special administrator?

*The cure was the ballot box: Rabuka promised local elections, and Biman Prasad backed their postponement

The Coalition Government said elected councils would restore democracy, transparency and accountability after years of ministerial control. It appointed interim administrators to prepare the transition but then postponed the elections and left those same appointees governing Fiji’s ratepayers

<<Previous

​ANOTHER EXPLICIT-VIDEO CONTROVERSY: WHAT LYNDA TABUYA AND VIJAY NARAYAN’S ‘STRAIGHT TALK’ LEFT UNANSWERED IN 2025