Fiji needs independent watchdog to watch MIDA for future elections

WHILE the Multinational Observer Group’s final report on the first post-coup Fiji general election since 2006 last week found the poll “credible” - as expected based on its preliminary report in spite of the cries of "fraud" by critics - it has offered a raft of recommendations for improvement, including with the news media.

Among these recommendations is a call for an independent watchdog for the controversial Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA), which had a mixed role during the elections.

Arguing that should MIDA continue its role in future elections, the final MOG report said there was a need for “an independent institution to adjudicate complaints about its actions”.

Citing the 2013 Constitution’s section 17 providing for freedom of “speech, expression and publication”, MOG was in general complimentary about the Fiji news media, saying they “made good efforts to cover the election”.

And thus political parties were “to varying degrees” able to communicate to the public.

A Fiji democratic mandate for the coup leader – what now for the media?

Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Rear-Admiral (Ret) Voreqe Bainimarama's Fiji First party is leading the country in the next four years. Photo: Mads Anneberg, an AUT Pacific Media Centre student on internship in Suva with Repúblika Magazine and Pacific Scoop for the elections

By David Robie

IN THE END, it was no real surprise. For 2006 coup leader Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who retired recently as the military strongman with the rank of rear admiral, it was a foregone conclusion that he would emerge as the triumphant victor in Fiji’s first general election in almost eight years.

Just as it was inevitable in 1992, when the original coupster - who staged two coups in the same year, 1987 -  Brigadier-General Sitiveni Rabuka made the transition from military backed prime minister to civilian leader.

A major difference is that Rabuka was elected in 1992 on an indigenous supremacy platform of “Fiji for Fijians” while Bainimarama’s Fiji First party is pledged to a multiracial “Fiji for all Fijians”.

The hope is that Bainimarama’s authoritarian streak will gradually mellow and he will come to recognise as an elected leader the critical importance of a civil society discourse with a strong non-government organisation sector and an independent Fourth Estate.

The media was once a proud and feisty part of Fiji democracy. It can achieve that credible status again.

Fiji's 'rocky ride' back to democracy - a media opportunity?

DAVID BEATSON’S wide-ranging and perceptive current affairs programme Interview was back on Auckland-based New Zealand independent community broadcaster Triangle TV this week. He featured the latest setbacks to the return to democracy in Fiji. Describing the situation as Fiji’s “rocky ride” to democracy, Beatson interviewed Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie. Among other interviews this week, Robie also talked to Radio NZ International’s news editor Walter Zweifel, welcoming an apparent “opening” in the Fiji political debate in the media in spite of censorship in recent years:

A leading New Zealand journalism educator says it is auguring well for Fiji’s future that the media has broadened its coverage of political affairs. 

Working under the tough terms of a number of decrees, Fiji media outlets largely ignored the criticism of the regime decision to dump the draft constitution which it had commissioned last year.

That prompted the Fiji Labour Party to claim that the local media only regurgitated the regime’s platitudes without looking at the accuracy of the statements.

Professor David Robie, who is the director of the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University, says days later after the regime released a decree on political parties, coverage improved.

“When it brings in a decree like this on political parties and expects one political party to dance to a tune of accountability and yet not provide that accountability itself, that seems to have opened the flood gates of open criticism and debate.”

Professor Robie says to have a genuine democracy in 2014, there needs to be a proper political debate, and the media is critical for this.

Meanwhile, Triangle TV will soon be launching a new public broadcasting channel Face Television on Sky and it plans to host a new current affairs programme, Public Interest, presented by Pacific Scoop and Scoop Media former co-editor Selwyn Manning. According to Manning, Public Interest is committed to “analysing issues” at a time when in-depth and investigative programmes are in retreat in New Zealand.  

“Public Interest is about promoting ideas that progress New Zealand’s bicultural society while empowering our communities and peoples to reach their potential.”

Strong independent Pacific content is expected to be a feature.

• David Robie interview on Triangle
• David Robie interview on Radio NZ International
• Public Interest current affairs demo
• Valentine's Day massacre: What next for Fiji? 

Cheap shot Fiji website takes another beating

How the Fiji Sun reported the SDL submission on Friday, August 10.

COUP 4.5 has hardly been the website to go when seeking informed and dispassionate background as the country goes through momentous and controversial changes leading into the 2014 elections. But this week it took another beating at the hands of Fiji-born and award-winning journalist Graham Davis. And a few news organisations took a credibility drubbing as well. This was part of the summing up on the Davis blog Grubsheet:

DYING OF SHAME By Graham Davis

It’s taken five days for the main anti-regime news website, Coup Four and a Half, to report that the SDL – the party of the deposed government of Laisenia Qarase – is advocating that Fiji become a Christian state. News that a delegation led by the SDL president, Solomoni Naivalu, had made a submission to this effect to the Constitutional Commission broke last Monday.

But while Coup 4.5 has been quick to post other items – including an Amnesty International report critical of Fiji – it greeted the disclosure of the SDL submission with total silence. Finally on Saturday morning, it posted this brief item:

SDL to front regarding the Naivalu submission.
Nothing like the whiff of racism and homophobia to get people stirring the pot again but given Fiji’s complicated history, it is not surprising.
A submission was made to the Constitution Commission this week on behalf of the SDL Party, by Solomon Naivalu and others.
That submission calls for:
1) Fiji to be declared a Christian state
2) Fiji be the official language of the country
3) i-taukei to be known only as Fijian
4) References to sexual orientation removed from human rights laws.
Coupfourpointfive understands despite this presentation to the Yash Ghai team, the SDL Party has not yet made an official submission.

Apart from the extraordinary first sentence that tries to spin the story back on its critics, the anonymous so-called journalists behind Coup 4.5 also aren’t telling the full story. They know – because Naivalu has confirmed it – that this submission and others like it are being presented by SDL constituency committees as a prelude to the main SDL submission due next month.

Naivalu has described it as a summary of the main submission. In other words, all these provisions will be included in a more detailed document. But you won’t be reading this on Coup 4.5, a website with only a passing acquaintance with the truth if that truth doesn’t suit its own agenda.
It’s definitely a case of selective reporting. Which proves that the so called “pro-democracy”, anti-regime elements of the international diaspora are having huge trouble coming to terms with the revelation. It’s clearly such a major embarrassment – a sudden woopsy of elephantine proportions – that they’re just hoping it will go away. Coup 4.5 is clearly struggling with what to say to its multiracial audience, which is routinely treated to contributions from Indo-Fijian anti-regime agitators like Wadan Narsey and Victor Lal.

After all, the party it supports wants to make Hindus and Muslims in Fiji bow to an exclusively Christian form of government. Presumably a Methodist theocracy – given the grassroots membership of the SDL – and the equivalent of an Islamic state elsewhere.

From where Grubsheet sits at week’s end, even some of the SDL’s strongest supporters seem to be dying of shame. They’re being asked to support not only a Christian state, but Fijian as the official language, an end to dual citizenship, only the i’Taukei to be identified as Fijians and an end to the constitutional protection of the gay and lesbian community. No wonder they want to pass by pretending that the stinking parcel of ordure that the SDL has suddenly dumped on the pavement has nothing to do with them. But they can’t ignore it for much longer. Next month, Coup 4.5 will have to report the main SDL submission whether it likes it or not or lose what remaining credibility it has. Which isn’t much.

Strange too, that having run two separate reports that there was “confusion” over whether the SDL had made a submission calling for a Christian state, that Radio Australia has chosen not to report Naivalu’s confirmation. Another case of selective reporting from the Australian public broadcaster? 

• The SDL submission – the proof 
• Communications Fiji's news director Vijay Narayan talks to Radio Australia
• Coup 4.5's fightback: SDL victim of bad reporting and bloody minded coup apologists 

Veteran Fiji broadcaster gagged on Pacific radio

A RECENT wide-ranging interview about Fiji has led to the suspension off air of veteran broadcaster Bulou Amalaini Ligalevu from her popular Pacific Media Network programme. Bulou Amalaini, an experienced former Radio Fiji broadcaster who started her 531pi Fijian-language Voqa Kei Viti (Voice of Fiji) in 1980, has fallen out with her bosses over a 20-minute interview with Fiji’s human rights advocacy group Citizens' Constitutional Forum (CCF) executive director Rev Akuila Yabaki (pictured). The programme included insightful views about media censorship and current developments in Fiji.

But while the programme drew some 25 comments complimenting Bulou Amalaini over the interview, three people emailed the radio station complaining about a section discussing the recent Methodist Church controversy. Regime leader Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama banned this year’s annual conference of the 200,000-strong church. The commander also demanded that the church sack two former presidents who were involved in previous coups, Rev Manasa Lasaro and Rev Tomasi Kanailagi, and are being blamed for “incitement”.

Acting chief executive Tom Etuata, of Niue, suspended Bulou Amalaini off air in response to the complaints – even before discussing the programme with her. He says the radio network aims for "balance". Bulou has now been told the suspension has been lifted, but it is understood she has not actually been scheduled for the regular five-hour Saturday evening Fiji slot since her June 6 broadcast.

All three complainants were hostile over Yabaki's and her criticisms of the Methodist Church. Said one: "And to bring such a person to openly criticise my church and its affairs to the people on New Zealand, how dare she do that. She continues to add on comments and remarks with suggestions about how we should run our church - who the hell is she?"

In this current post-Easter climate of media censorship in Fiji and the dearth of quality comment about the political situation, Bulou Amalaini’s programme has been a gem. It has been marked by quality and in-depth research and credible commentators. “But a lot of people don’t like Rev Yabaki for his forthright and independent views – and for the same reason, some don’t like me,” she told Café Pacific.

Among views expressed in the Yabaki interview were:

On censorship:

It’s difficult to get national news broadcast out of Fiji without it being censored by the regime. We have to find an alternative way of transmitting this information to the outside world, particularly when we are depending on the international community to help out.

On the abrogation of the 1997 Constitution:

Yes, it’s true that our Constitution has been abrogated. However, basic human rights still exist globally - and this includes the right of freedom of speech. Every human being has the right to freedom of speech and although the Public Emergency Regulation is in force … we have to try and work a way around this censorship.

On the chilling of free speech:

People are not so forthcoming for fear of victimisation, whereby they could lose their jobs and all interviews are being screened as directed by the regime. This does not augur well for a solution. Instead we need to keep the dialogue open. And, as I have mentioned before, there were some discriminatory overtones in the last Parliament but that does not mean that freedom of expression should be curtailed altogether.

On arbitrary arrests and detentions:

We are concerned at the arrest and detention of people by the police and military. Following the abrogation of the Constitution on April 10, the Public Emergency Regulation (PER) was promulgated for 30 days [and Bainimarama says it will now be in force until the end of the year] ... This PER [was] embedded in our Constitution and can be executed by Parliament as a security measure if there is civil unrest or disturbance in the country. It had never been used before until the coup was staged in December 2006 and more recently after 10 April 2009.

On the banning of the Methodist Church annual conference:

The Methodist Church chose not to be a member of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF) ... The Methodist Church is very much in disarray. If you look at the history of the stand that the Methodist Church has taken in the past 20 years, you will note that it supported the first coup of 1987 and also George Speight’s coup in the year 2000. But it opposed the coup of 2006 because it believes that Fiji should be governed by Fijians, who are their members, as if it were their divine right. This was the case when Dr Timoci Bavadra and Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour Party won the general elections of 1987 and 1999.

How ironical that those objecting to the Bainimarama regime’s censorship in Fiji should seek to gag a prominent Fiji broadcaster in New Zealand for trying to open up debate.

Picture of Rev Akuila Yabaki - The Fiji Times.

• Pacific radio defends banning action over 'unbalanced' Fiji interview
  
• Citizens' Constitutional Forum
• Fiji Methodists face ban
• Government’s decision ‘intact’
• Beware of conmen, warns PM
• Stop misleading members - PM
• English translation of the Yabaki interview
  

Fiji news media stripped of the usual tempo

FIJI news media seem so banal these days, deprived of their usual gutsy, punchy and lively political stories and debate. Sport has taken over on many front pages. “Gateway” Fijilive – the website that took the world by storm during the George Speight coup in May 2000 – offers headline stories such as hotel bank loans may be linked to local and environmental value, a downtown jewellery theft in Suva and five being held over a murder. But the global scare of the moment on swine flu virus has an impact here too. The odd story like defence chief Ratu Epeli Ganilau being in Tonga (he says the military doesn’t need downsizing) for a regional “security” strategic meeting gets a run. And, of course, a chief headline on Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama and his top brass getting gongs for “services to humanity”. A handful of international journalists and some are doing a fine job on the ground - Philippa Tolley of Radio NZ for example. In a Listener article this week, entitled "Sticking to his guns," Rebecca Macfie asks while Bainimarama says he wants a racially fairer electoral system, "are his more self-serving motives catching up with him?"

The regime plans to review the martial law parameters now that the country has endured two weeks of censorship. Hopefully the decrees will be relaxed.

Café Pacific notes a couple of recently posted stories on why many Fiji islanders are turning to the blogs again in droves in an effort to keep abreast of both factual info and the rumours. More fact-based blogs, like Coup Four And A Half have emerged and Croz Walsh’s Fiji continues to do a fine job on analysis (he has just posted a scathing condemnation of TVNZ's Lisa Owen and her parachute beat-up about "civil unrest"). Former Fiji Broadcasting Corporation chief executive Sireli Kini is quoted in the David Brooks story on blogs for AFP as saying:

It's human instinct, people want to know what's happening and when somebody spreads a rumour it spreads like wildfire and it's very destructive… [The blogs] have taken over the role of the conventional journalism by informing the members of the public.

In another article, Pacific Media Centre’s David Robie wraps up the state up of play with the crisis. While the local media remain gagged, more international journalists have filtered in –providing they were” approved” by not being in the regime’s bad books (ie. filing earlier stories that annoyed the military and/or some of its civilian henchmen). He notes that the media have become rather muted, but not for long. He has spoken on the creativity and adaptability of Fiji journalists and opined that they would find other ways to dodge the gag.

Pictured: Colonel Mohammed Aziz (Chief of Staff), Prime Minister Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, Commander Land Forces Colonel Pita Driti and Warrant Officer Semesa Leweni at Government House after receiving their awards. Photo: Fiji government portal

• ‘Sulu censors’ stifle Fiji news media
• Blogs rule as regime cracks down on media
• Fiji PM gets medal ‘for service to humanity’
• Fiji government website features military awards
• Duvuloco and five others in custody
  

Clinton told: Don’t listen to ‘heavy-handed’ Australia, NZ on Fiji

A STORY that didn’t rate too highly in the Australian and NZ press this week was Congressman Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin’s "advice" to US Secretary of State Helen Clinton to take a reality check on the briefings being dished up by Canberra and Wellington. This was important for two reasons: First, somebody of his stature in the Pacific giving prominence to another, more conciliatory view on Fiji. Second, it highlights the lack of an effort on the part of “big brother” media in the region to get the diverse and balanced Pacific viewpoints over Fiji. One of the few journalists to be diligent in this respect is Radio NZ's Richard Pamatatau who has consistently provided fresh angles in his Pacific reporting.

The Fiji media, of course, were quick to give their spin as part of their new regime-tailored “journalism of hope” era, but they often overlooked another important part of Faleomavaega’s discussion on a more comprehensive US policy on the Pacific: Clinton reportedly expressed support for greater autonomy for West Papua – another blind spot in the NZ media. (This was in response to Faleomavaega's request that the Obama Administration review the political status of West Papua and "hold Indonesia accountable for continued human rights abuses" in Jakarta-ruled "province".)

Faleomavaega met Clinton after returning from a visit to Fiji (he met privately with regime leader Voreqe Bainimarama and former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry) and his message was don’t listen to the “nasty accusations” against Fiji and the country shouldn’t be pressured into rushing into elections – it isn’t ready yet.

According to a statement from his office, Faleomavaega said: “The situation in Fiji is more complex than it appears. [The United States] has had no coherent policy toward some 16 Pacific island nations; very indicative of the fact is that we have not had any USAID presence in the Pacific region for many years now."

And for too often, and for too long, Madam Secretary, in my view, we've permitted Australia and New Zealand to take the lead even when Canberra and Washington operate with such a heavy hand that they are counterproductive to our shared goals," Faleomavaega added. It makes no sense, Madam Secretary, for the leaders of New Zealand and Australia to demand early elections just for the sake of having elections in Fiji while there are fundamental deficiencies in Fiji's electoral process, which gave rise to three military takeovers and even a civilian-related takeover within the past 20 years - along with three separate constitutions to govern these islands. I totally disagree with the nasty accusations that the leaders of New Zealand and Australia have made against Fiji given the fact that it's more complicated than it appears.

Faleomavaega immediately copped blasts from the Coup four point five media blog and Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi. According to a report by Savali editor Tupuola Terry Tavita, Tuilaepa reckons Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin has been in the US too long and he is out of touch with Pacific politics:

Perhaps [Faleomavaega] has forgotten that Fiji has been independent since 1970 and its Legislature, Judiciary and the Executive branches of Government have been functioning until the military started to meddle with the affairs of government – a responsibility it was least capable of performing…
The good congressman completely ignores the fact that the regime in Fiji is a military dictatorship. And that Bainimarama’s regime has been engaging in a ruthless crackdown on dissenting public opinion and complete suppression of the media. Is not freedom of speech, freedom of the media and engaging in free and fair elections hallmarks of American democracy?

Touché!

• Faleomavaega's advice to Clinton
• Congressman hits out at Australian/NZ accusations
• Congressman Hunkin's meeting with Bainimarama deplored
  

Repressive Fiji regime forces return to 'news by blog'

Open letter by Pat Craddock

Dear Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama,

So – only good news can be reported. Wow –perhaps the army can try and shut down Al Jazeera, BBC and CNN too? I notice their reporting doesn't praise the army for their actions.

Fiji journalists must be finding it hard to discover what good news there is to report on the army?

Commodore, your actions this week have surely given a new lease of life to Fiji blog sites. For us in NZ – and Oz and elsewhere – where else should we now look for news on Fiji, but through the blogs? I read tonight on a blog site that the army is taking petrol from gas stations without payment – true or untrue? How am I to assess the truth of this comment – not from the Fiji newspapers, surely? They won’t be allowed to print that type of bad news, even if it is true?

So… a wait until possibly 2014 before the citizens of Fiji can vote for the government they want? Most governments voted by the people, would not get that lease of life with long term promises to improve the lives of their citizens. From 2006 until 2014 is eight years… a long time for a visionary leader to prepare policies of political change. Too bloody long.

It’s surely time for citizens (and those who wear army uniform too) to tell you, Commodore, about the real world of politics.

Last year, the now defunct National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF) initiated by you, put together a draft of a People’s Charter. More than 200 citizens from all over Fiji helped to draft the “pillars” that defined the content of the charter.

John Samy, of the NCBBF Secretariat, worked through these ideas and put together a draft charter. The secretariat then set about spreading the ideas among the public for them to comment upon.

The work involved printing and distributing between nearly 200,000 of copies of the draft People’s Charter in the three main languages; setting up TV interviews and approving a radio campaign of over 100 mini-programmes and adverts on the draft charter content. I know about the radio side as I put the radio programs together. Some of them were repeated more than five times a day for several months on English, Hindi and Fijian language radio stations.

It may be useful for you, Commodore, to look again at the draft of the People's Charter - especially Pillar Eight. My draft copy says that the “way forward” includes reducing the incidence of poverty by 50 percent by 2015. Nearly 200,000 of your people live in squatter camps.

If the scenario of a democratic election does not take place in 2014, a new government will take one look at this worthy Pillar and say… it was your responsibility Commodore – you were in total control of Fiji since 2006! There will also be serious questions to ask the President, but will he be around to answer and give his point of view? He is an old and frail man.

Commodore – you chose to be a politician. You will be judged by the people of Fiji on your achievements, i.e. providing jobs, housing, health care and education, and not by rhetoric and your ability to dance around kicking the constitution and journalists.

I’m from New Zealand, we have a democracy – it is flawed – all democracies are. But our politicians are judged and returned or replaced by us – even if it is only once every three years. Helen Clark was voted out and left quietly, if John Key loses the next election, he too will bow out with grace. Democracy is far from a perfect system. But even giving you credit for doing what you did with the best of intentions, you may well end up in your old age looking back and seeing that the forthcoming 2014 elections did not solve the serious problems of Fiji.

And, in case I forget, the Fiji media will report that news in great detail!!!!

You kicked out the Constitution, why not just pass a decree changing the voting system and putting the draft of the People’s Charter into law. All it needs now is a stroke of the pen – or ink on the muzzle of your gun. You could do the task in five minutes.

Patrick Craddock is former lecturer in broadcast journalism at the University of the South Pacific and former social media educator for the National Council for Building a Better Fiji.

• Backgrounder on Fiji and censorship
• PMC condemns 'ruthless censorship'
• Blogs on the muzzling of the media
• Coup Four Point Five
  
• Pacific Media Watch updates
• James Murray's blog on Fiji dissent

Making the Fiji media more transparent

IS FIJI well served by its Media Council? Not proactive enough, say some. Not visible enough, say others. Has the complaints process been rigorous enough? Is it really doing its job on behalf of media freedom? Is the relationship with the industry too cosy in the public mind? For self-regulation to work fairly and in a balanced way, it has to be seen to be genuinely working in the interests of all stakeholders in the Fourth Estate - and that includes the grassroots public, not just the owners, publishers and broadcasters. One of the more reflective Fiji journalists to emerge in the country's moment of need is Fiji Times associate editor Sophie Foster who gave a thought-provoking speech at the annual awards of the University of the South Pacific's regional journalism programme. While presenting a measured overview of how hell-bent the regime is on pushing through the misguided media law promulgation - and it is all about drafting a law before consultation - Foster said it was about time the self-regulatory Media Council was reviewed:

We suggest a far better approach, and one that will not end up costing the government anything, is to review the Media Council itself, including ways to streamline its processes and make its complaints mechanism more proactive and efficient – and ultimately more effective.
We believe that self-regulation is the way to go. But we also recognise that our detractors believe that self-regulation makes the industry a law unto itself. It is necessary to remove these fears and allay all suspicions in this regard.
As such, the media must make itself more transparent and more accessible to members of the public.

Ironically, this view echoes a conclusion I had reached in a paper - Freedom of the gatekeepers - comparing the 2007 reviews of the NZ Press Council and the Fiji media (Anthony report) presented at the Public Right to Know 7 conference in Sydney in mid-October.

• Time to review the Fiji Media Council
• Freedom of the gatekeepers
• Major Neumi Leweni's view - "Media freedom and constitutional guarantee"

'Rabuka's legacy' - nice one, Mosmi

LETTER in today's Fiji Times ... from former journo now civil rights advocate Mosmi Bhim:

Rabuka's legacy
There is a loophole in our laws through which treasonous acts can be carried out with impunity. This loophole was discovered by the father of coups in Fiji, Mr Sitiveni Rabuka, who got himself immunity from prosecution for the 1987 coups.
Till today, Rabuka can't stop gloating about his cleverness in getting immunity, which is glorified through the weekly opinion columns in the daily media.
George Speight also got himself immunity from prosecution in 2000 - but his immunity came with conditions. Imagine if George Speight had not violated the conditions, he would have been like Sitiveni Rabuka - gloating about his unprosecuted crime every week.
It was no surprise when Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama [pictured] and his comrades secured immunity as a first step, even before they created an interim regime.
They remembered the lesson from Rabuka.
What do we do about this loophole in our laws? It is essential that we have an Executive Head of State with reserve powers that can be utilised in times of emergency. But surely, granting of immunity for treason and takeovers of government should not be a permissible activity for any President.
Rabuka's legacy lives on through the taint on the office of the Fiji President.
Mosmi Bhim
Suva

• The High Court coup 'legality' judgment
• 'Voice of the people'

Bye bye Qarase - a bula morning in the Fiji High Court

A BOMB threat cleared the Fiji High Court today, but the end result was a damp squib for the coup critics' camp. Coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama won his ruling in court and it was bye bye Laisenia Qarase. The deposed prime minister's attempt to have the December 2006 coup declared in breach of the 1997 constitution failed. One of Café Pacific's e-scribes was on hand to record some wry impressions:

In offices they listened and watched as Fiji TV carried the court findings live and radio boomed out around the nation. On the streets they listened. On the island of Laisenia Qarase, people were glued to the live radio broadcast.
It was Judgment Day - and a big one too.
Qarase lost his case. The Fijian Constitution still stands and that’s that.
The President has direct powers to rule. He has used them and he has the right to use them until the next election is ready.
He was given a long lead time – at least no date was hinted at for the election. When the time is ready for the elections, it’s ready.
Bainimarama must be laughing all the way to his office today, dancing and firing guns in the air. The kava bowls will be filled over many times.
So goes the judgment. And there was not implied - but direct criticism - voiced against both Australia and New Zealand for their travel bans against the interim government.
As for the judge who read the judgment, it took him around two hours in all with a break for coffee and biscuits. And was it wordy? – Oh yes.
We had references to precedents in England, Scotland,
the Philippines, Colonial India and World Two in Burma.
I heard the name John Locke and 1688. I lost the plot now and again, and returned to it between my cups of coffee. But then the three judges needed breaks too.
At the end of the judgment, the judge apologised to the various legal counsel for small typographical errors, and said he was would send electronic correct copies to them during the afternoon.
He also gave a gentle barbed reply on trees, conservation and paper to a counsel who asked about getting a corrected printed copy of the judgment.

The Fiji interim regime wasted no time in calling for cooperation and support for its election plans and constitutional legal specialist Professor Bill Hodge, of Auckland University, says many governments previously opposed to the regime can now be expected to recognise the government as legitimate.

Meanwhile, University of the South Pacific political scientist Steve Ratuva has done a handy analysis on the real power plays at work in Fiji - something vastly better than has been seen from the local flacks for months.

• Multiple battle lines - who is winning?
• Fiji High Court upholds 2006 coup
• Fiji court legitimises 2006 military coup
• Fiji court backs legality of 2006 coup
• Fiji interim regime urges cooperation
• The full judgment