BIMANGATE: When the Electoral Law snared him for his TEN years of LIES, his lawyers tried to conjure one last legal trick. As NFP LEADER he was not obligated to disclose anything under the party's CONSTITUTION

'As NFP Leader, [Biman Prasad] is not an 'office holder' within the meaning of that term in the Act and is therefore not a person who is required to make the 'office holder' disclosures under s24.'
Australian KC Martin Daubney, 24 August 2024 to Richard Naidu and FICAC.
*Prasad's legal team chose to ignore s24(2) which required Prasad, as an election candidate along with other candidates, to declare his income, assets, properties, directorships, shares and dividends under the Political Parties Act 2013. He stood for election as an NFP candidate in the 2014, 2018, and 2022 elections. He led the party into elections and signed the Coalition Pact to form the government with PAP and SODELPA.
*He began his lies in his first declaration in July 2014 when he did not disclose his Directorship in Lotus Construction (Fiji) Ltd. For TEN years he lied in his declarations for we didn't have his LOTUS FILE until last year, and the Fiji Elections Office relies solely on the candidates to declare truthfully and faithfully their statutory declarations. The FEO will investigate only if someone lodges a complaint against the candidate's declaration on publication.
*In the 2022 election, Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum changed the rule and made the declarations private. We managed to get hold of Prasad's declarations.
​*Prasad's legal team also ignored the then Chief Justice Tony Gates ruling in FICAC v Rabuka (2018), where the CJ Gates had confirmed that the PARTY LEADER fell under the ambit of an office holder. Gates stated at p63:
'For a party leader not to come within the category 'office holder' would seem odd in view of the importance of such a position in any party. If the party leader is later nominated to be a candidate in the elections he will have to make a similar declaration eg section 24(2). But as the matter stands with the definition of office holder I find it is sufficiently wide to include 'party leader'.

*Biman Prasad and his lawyers 'Indian Rope Trick': A long piece of rope is left in a basket and placed in an open field, usually by a fakir (beggar). The rope levitates, with no external support. A boy assistant, a jamoora, climbs the rope and then descends to the ground.
*Another version has the magician (or his assistant) disappearing after reaching the top of the rope, then reappearing at the ground level.
*On 24 August 2024, Prasad's lawyer Richard Naidu of Munro Leys obtained a legal opinion from Martin Daubney KC in Australia, and forwarded it to FICAC. Daubney, who had represented Naidu in his 'Scandalizing the Court' before the Fiji High Court, concluded: 
'It is my opinion that Professor Prasad, as NFP Leader, is not an 'office holder' within the meaning of that term in the Act and is therefore not a person who is required to make the 'office holder' disclosures under s24.'
​*Basically, they were throwing every other political leader under the bus, including NFP's own party candidates who, along with Prasad, were required to declare under the Political Parties Act 2013 their incomes, assets, gifts, properties, directorships, shares, and dividends. 

Martin Daubney KC

CJ Gates

Biman Prasad while casting his vote at the International School Suva polling station in Laucala Beach, Suva on Wednesday, Decemeber 14, 2022.