Author: Reuters
Publication: The Indian
Express
Date: November 16, 2000
Fiji's High Court on
Wednesday ordered the pre-coup administration of Prime Minister Mahendra
Chaudhry reinstated, but the military and its interim government promptly
rejected the ruling.
"The interim government
will continue as the national government and legislative authority in Fiji,"
interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said in a statement.
Both Qarase and the military
said they would appeal against the court decision that the interim government
was illegal. Analysts said that without military backing the ruling
was only a moral victory for Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian leader
who was toppled in a May coup and held hostage.
"In real political terms
there is no evidence that the legal solution will matter very much," Suva-based
University of South Pacific associate professor Scott Mac William said.
"Fiji now has a government
that is dependent entirely on military support. It cannot rule in
any other means."
High Court Judge Anthony
Gates said in his ruling that the post-coup government was unconstitutional
and called on deposed President Sir Ratu Sir Kamisese Mare to recall parliament
and reinstate Chaudhry.
Failed businessman George
Speight and gunmen stormed Fiji's parliament in May and toppled the Chaudhry
government in the name of indigenous rights, Chaudhry was released after
56 days and the military appointed an interim indigenous Fijian government.
Speight is in Jail awaiting
trial on treason charges. A failed military mutiny on November 2
by the special forces unit which backed Speight's coup left eight soldiers
dead and 22 civilians wounded and further rocked Fiji. "The George
Speight coup was unsuccessful in its attempt to overthrow the democratically
elected government of Mahendra Chaudhry," Gates said Chaudhry welcomed
the ruling and urged post-coup authorities to recall parliament and return
Fiji to democracy. "The (Chaudhry government) coalition urges the
authorities to abide by the high court ruling and to recall parliament
so that Fiji is back to democratic rule," he said in a statement.
Qarase said he would
continue to rule Fiji with the aim of securing the safety of citizens,
rehabilitating the battered economy and working towards an eventual return
to democracy.
He said he drew authority
from the military-backed President Ratu
Josefa Iloilo and Fiji's
traditional power base, the Great Council of Chiefs.
He said his government
was committed to a new constitution to "Secure the future of indigenous
Fijians" after the Great Council of Chiefs withdrew its endorsement of
the 1997 multi-racial constitution. But Gates said the abrogation
of the 1997 multi-racial constitution, which had enabled Chaudhry to become
Fiji' first ethnic Indian Prime Minster, was wrong and that the make-up
of Fiji's multi-racial pre-coup parliament was still intact.
The high court ruling
stems from a case by an Indian-Fijian who was displaced by the coup and
forced to live in a refugee camp. There are a series of individual
cases pending which challenge Fiji's the post-coup administration.
The Qarase administration
has said it plans to rule Fiji for the next 18 months after which it would
hold fresh elections.
New Zealand Prime Minster
Helen Clark said the ruling was a signal to Fiji to speed up a return to
democracy.
"The sooner the government,
unconstitutional as it is in Fiji, comes up with a clear timetable to return
to constitutional democracy, the better," Clark told at a news conference
on the sidelines of a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Brunei.
