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| When Richard Naidu recently appeared in The Fiji Times to comment on the fallout from the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the appointment of Barbara Malimali, he spoke with the assurance of someone comfortably removed from danger. The COI, he suggested, had become controversial. Its adverse findings were now being challenged as unfair or unreasonable. Judicial review, not institutional introspection, was the order of the day. |  |
But this confident public posture sits uneasily with the position Naidu himself occupied a year earlier, when the COI was not an abstract object of commentary but a forum in which his own integrity had been placed in issue. The contrast is not accidental. It is revealing.
February 2025: Respect, NOT Resistance
When Naidu engaged with the COI in February 2025, his tone could not have been more different. He did not attack the inquiry. He did not question its legitimacy. He did not accuse Justice Ashton-Lewis of bias, overreach, or procedural unfairness.
On the contrary, his letter and affidavit demonstrate deference to the process and respect for the Commissioner. He acknowledged the seriousness of the inquiry and accepted its authority to hear evidence, including evidence that touched directly on him.
That is precisely why he felt compelled to act.
Naidu explained that allegations had been made against him during the hearings, arising from witness testimony, and that those allegations were said to go to his personal motivations in supporting Professor Biman Prasad in matters connected to the Malimali appointment. Because they were treated as relevant by the Commission itself, silence was no longer an option .
His sworn affidavit was not a polemic. It was not a protest. It was a shield.
An Affidavit of Necessity, NOT Defiance
Read properly, Naidu’s affidavit is a document of legal necessity, not institutional hostility. It is tightly drawn, cautious, and defensive in the literal sense: designed to prevent reputational harm arising from untested allegations aired in a public forum. He confines himself to factual rebuttal, professional demarcation, and denial, repeatedly and emphatically: “Each and every one of these allegations is untrue.”
This is not the language of a man undermining a Commission of Inquiry. It is the language of a senior lawyer who understands that allegations placed on the COI record do not evaporate unless answered. At the time, Naidu relied on the COI’s fairness to hear and weigh his sworn response. He trusted the process enough to engage with it, not attack it.
What was he protecting himself from?
The affidavit makes plain why he felt compelled to respond. The allegations were not trivial. They included claims that Naidu had:
Any one of these, if left unanswered before a corruption inquiry, would have carried lasting professional consequences. Naidu’s affidavit was therefore an act of self-preservation within a process he otherwise respected.
A Year Later: Confidence After Exposure Has Passed
Fast-forward to the present. In his recent Fiji Times article, Naidu no longer writes as someone operating under the COI’s scrutiny. He writes as someone looking back, safely, from a position of distance. The COI is now described as controversial. Its findings are framed as legally vulnerable. Its necessity is openly questioned.
What has changed is not the record. What has changed is where Naidu now stands in relation to it. In February 2025, the COI had the capacity to harm him. In 2026, it does not.
The Discomfort Is NOT Contradiction. It is Omission.
To be clear, Naidu has not contradicted himself on facts. The discomfort arises from selective framing.
In his Fiji Times piece, readers are told that he represented clients before the COI. What they are not told is that he was also forced to defend himself personally, under oath, against allegations aired during the inquiry.
That omission matters. A reader unfamiliar with the February 2025 affidavit would reasonably assume Naidu’s engagement with the COI was purely representative. The documentary record shows otherwise. And, why this matters.
Lawyers are entitled to change their views. They are entitled to criticise institutions. They are entitled to defend clients and themselves. But when a senior legal figure praises a process when he is inside it, and later critiques that same process once the risk has passed, the public is entitled to be told both halves of the story.
Naidu’s affidavit shows respect, restraint, and reliance on the COI’s fairness. His later commentary projects confidence, distance, and critique. Both may be sincere. But they are not the same posture.
The Affidavit Record Remains
Richard Naidu survived the COI. He rebutted the allegations against him. No criminal charges followed. But survival does not erase history.
His recent Fiji Times article invites readers to view the COI as flawed and controversial. His own affidavit reminds us that, when it mattered most, he accepted the inquiry’s authority and relied on its integrity to hear him fairly.
It is the space between those two positions - deference then, distance now - that makes his latest intervention sit so uneasily with the record.
And records do not disappear simply because time has passed.
NEXT INSTALMENT: My Meet-and Greet With the COI in November 2024: Why Justice Ashton-Lewis and Senior Counsel Janet Mason directed my evidence against the NFP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister BIMAN PRASAD to FICAC and Fiji Police, and why later allegations against them do NOT sit with their actual conduct.
WHEN THE COI HAD TEETH AND RICHARD NAIDU ACCEPTED ITS AUTHORITY
In February 2025, Richard Naidu respected the Commission of Inquiry. He praised its Commissioner. He accepted its authority. And he swore an affidavit to protect himself from allegations made under oath.
In 2026, with the danger gone, the same inquiry is recast as controversial and unfair.
That is not hypocrisy. It is something subtler, and more revealing. Power changes perspective. Distance rewrites memory. But affidavits remain.
February 2025: Respect, NOT Resistance
When Naidu engaged with the COI in February 2025, his tone could not have been more different. He did not attack the inquiry. He did not question its legitimacy. He did not accuse Justice Ashton-Lewis of bias, overreach, or procedural unfairness.
On the contrary, his letter and affidavit demonstrate deference to the process and respect for the Commissioner. He acknowledged the seriousness of the inquiry and accepted its authority to hear evidence, including evidence that touched directly on him.
That is precisely why he felt compelled to act.
Naidu explained that allegations had been made against him during the hearings, arising from witness testimony, and that those allegations were said to go to his personal motivations in supporting Professor Biman Prasad in matters connected to the Malimali appointment. Because they were treated as relevant by the Commission itself, silence was no longer an option .
His sworn affidavit was not a polemic. It was not a protest. It was a shield.
An Affidavit of Necessity, NOT Defiance
Read properly, Naidu’s affidavit is a document of legal necessity, not institutional hostility. It is tightly drawn, cautious, and defensive in the literal sense: designed to prevent reputational harm arising from untested allegations aired in a public forum. He confines himself to factual rebuttal, professional demarcation, and denial, repeatedly and emphatically: “Each and every one of these allegations is untrue.”
This is not the language of a man undermining a Commission of Inquiry. It is the language of a senior lawyer who understands that allegations placed on the COI record do not evaporate unless answered. At the time, Naidu relied on the COI’s fairness to hear and weigh his sworn response. He trusted the process enough to engage with it, not attack it.
What was he protecting himself from?
The affidavit makes plain why he felt compelled to respond. The allegations were not trivial. They included claims that Naidu had:
- improperly influenced tax policy benefiting water bottling companies;
- done so while serving as Chair of the Fiscal Review Committee, appointed by the Minister of Finance;
- acted through Munro Leys’ professional associations;
- been involved, directly or indirectly, in questionable matters relating to Energy Fiji Limited (EFL);
- and even been linked, however loosely, to claims invoking “money laundering”.
Any one of these, if left unanswered before a corruption inquiry, would have carried lasting professional consequences. Naidu’s affidavit was therefore an act of self-preservation within a process he otherwise respected.
A Year Later: Confidence After Exposure Has Passed
Fast-forward to the present. In his recent Fiji Times article, Naidu no longer writes as someone operating under the COI’s scrutiny. He writes as someone looking back, safely, from a position of distance. The COI is now described as controversial. Its findings are framed as legally vulnerable. Its necessity is openly questioned.
What has changed is not the record. What has changed is where Naidu now stands in relation to it. In February 2025, the COI had the capacity to harm him. In 2026, it does not.
The Discomfort Is NOT Contradiction. It is Omission.
To be clear, Naidu has not contradicted himself on facts. The discomfort arises from selective framing.
In his Fiji Times piece, readers are told that he represented clients before the COI. What they are not told is that he was also forced to defend himself personally, under oath, against allegations aired during the inquiry.
That omission matters. A reader unfamiliar with the February 2025 affidavit would reasonably assume Naidu’s engagement with the COI was purely representative. The documentary record shows otherwise. And, why this matters.
Lawyers are entitled to change their views. They are entitled to criticise institutions. They are entitled to defend clients and themselves. But when a senior legal figure praises a process when he is inside it, and later critiques that same process once the risk has passed, the public is entitled to be told both halves of the story.
Naidu’s affidavit shows respect, restraint, and reliance on the COI’s fairness. His later commentary projects confidence, distance, and critique. Both may be sincere. But they are not the same posture.
The Affidavit Record Remains
Richard Naidu survived the COI. He rebutted the allegations against him. No criminal charges followed. But survival does not erase history.
His recent Fiji Times article invites readers to view the COI as flawed and controversial. His own affidavit reminds us that, when it mattered most, he accepted the inquiry’s authority and relied on its integrity to hear him fairly.
It is the space between those two positions - deference then, distance now - that makes his latest intervention sit so uneasily with the record.
And records do not disappear simply because time has passed.
NEXT INSTALMENT: My Meet-and Greet With the COI in November 2024: Why Justice Ashton-Lewis and Senior Counsel Janet Mason directed my evidence against the NFP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister BIMAN PRASAD to FICAC and Fiji Police, and why later allegations against them do NOT sit with their actual conduct.
WHEN THE COI HAD TEETH AND RICHARD NAIDU ACCEPTED ITS AUTHORITY
In February 2025, Richard Naidu respected the Commission of Inquiry. He praised its Commissioner. He accepted its authority. And he swore an affidavit to protect himself from allegations made under oath.
In 2026, with the danger gone, the same inquiry is recast as controversial and unfair.
That is not hypocrisy. It is something subtler, and more revealing. Power changes perspective. Distance rewrites memory. But affidavits remain.
Individuals named in the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the appointment of Barbara Malimali to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) are pursuing civil court proceedings aimed at restoring their reputations, following the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ (ODPP) decision to dismiss all 12 related police investigations.
Prominent Suva lawyer Richard Naidu said the ongoing judicial review proceedings seek court declarations that adverse findings made by the COI should not have been made, on the basis that they were unfair or unreasonable.
“I should disclose that I was the lawyer who represented before the COI for two clients,” Mr Naidu said.
“I have alternative in some people who are not challenging the COI for two clients.”
The COI report criticised the actions and decisions of a number of people in connection with Ms Malimali’s appointment and suggested that some may have committed criminal offences. It recommended that those individuals be investigated by police, prompting the launch of multiple investigations.
Mr Naidu explained that police subsequently sought legal advice from the ODPP, which has constitutional authority over police prosecutions and provides legal guidance when requested.
Prominent Suva lawyer Richard Naidu said the ongoing judicial review proceedings seek court declarations that adverse findings made by the COI should not have been made, on the basis that they were unfair or unreasonable.
“I should disclose that I was the lawyer who represented before the COI for two clients,” Mr Naidu said.
“I have alternative in some people who are not challenging the COI for two clients.”
The COI report criticised the actions and decisions of a number of people in connection with Ms Malimali’s appointment and suggested that some may have committed criminal offences. It recommended that those individuals be investigated by police, prompting the launch of multiple investigations.
Mr Naidu explained that police subsequently sought legal advice from the ODPP, which has constitutional authority over police prosecutions and provides legal guidance when requested.
After reviewing the evidence, the ODPP advised that the criminal prosecution thresholds had not been met.
“I think the ODPP was wise to seek the advice of respected Australian Kings Counsel, M Ian Lloyd to give independent advice to the ODPP on those matters.”
However, Mr Naidu emphasised that the conclusion of the criminal investigation process does not bring all legal matters arising from the COI to an end.
The judicial review proceedings remain before the courts and are civil in nature. They focus on whether the COI’s findings were lawfully and fairly made, rather than on criminal liability.
“Every Commission of Inquiry is different and that the current situation does not set a broader legal precedent.”
While Commissions of Inquiry are uncommon in Fiji, he said they can play a useful role in examining controversial events, informing the public, and identifying lessons to prevent similar issues in the future.
He added that the controversy surrounding the FICAC-related COI stems largely from how this particular inquiry unfolded, rather than from the concept of Commissions of Inquiry itself.
“Whether a COI was necessary in the case of Ms Malimali’s appointment is a matter for people to argue about.
“However, it is probably fair to say that this particular COI, rather than resolve a controversial event, seems to have become its own controversial event.”
“I think the ODPP was wise to seek the advice of respected Australian Kings Counsel, M Ian Lloyd to give independent advice to the ODPP on those matters.”
However, Mr Naidu emphasised that the conclusion of the criminal investigation process does not bring all legal matters arising from the COI to an end.
The judicial review proceedings remain before the courts and are civil in nature. They focus on whether the COI’s findings were lawfully and fairly made, rather than on criminal liability.
“Every Commission of Inquiry is different and that the current situation does not set a broader legal precedent.”
While Commissions of Inquiry are uncommon in Fiji, he said they can play a useful role in examining controversial events, informing the public, and identifying lessons to prevent similar issues in the future.
He added that the controversy surrounding the FICAC-related COI stems largely from how this particular inquiry unfolded, rather than from the concept of Commissions of Inquiry itself.
“Whether a COI was necessary in the case of Ms Malimali’s appointment is a matter for people to argue about.
“However, it is probably fair to say that this particular COI, rather than resolve a controversial event, seems to have become its own controversial event.”
