# CHRISTOPHER PRYDE REINSTATED AS DPP (UPDATED WITH LINK TO TRIBUNAL REPORT)

In sensational news, the President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, has written to the DPP, Christopher Pryde, telling hm that the allegations of misbehaviour that have seen him suspended for the past 21 months have not been proven and that he is expected back in Suva to resume duty at Gunu House as the nation’s Chief Prosecutor.

To follow is the President’s letter to Christopher Pryde copied to multiple sources, including the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka and the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, who had notoriously branded the DPP as a thief.

It is total vindication of Christopher Pryde’s claim that he did nothing wrong and an abject humiliation for the State.

Grubsheet understands that the DPP is preparing to return to Suva as soon as possible. He left his office in April 2023 carrying his famous sign, “Keep Calm and Carry on”. And now he will be returning doubtless carrying the same sign to reattach it to his wall in the ODPP.

The dramatic culmination of an extraordinary chapter in Fiji’s national life.

More details and analysis to come….

But an astonishing demonstration of persistence and one man’s determination to adhere to the motto Pryde embraced not just for himself but for the ODPP as its head.

Despite the campaign to destroy him, the DPP maintained a respectful attitude towards those he will now have to work with again. It is a win for him personally and a win for the rule of law in Fiji.

The most astonishing aspect of this whole saga is that having had his salary severed and not being able to afford to adequately defend himself before the Tribunal, Christopher Pryde won his case anyway.

The State spent many months trawling the offices of state and the civil service for instances of alleged misbehaviour to nail the DPP and found none. So his reputation and integrity have now been restored in the most dramatic of circumstances imaginable.

UPDATE TUES EVENING

After a two week delay, the President has also upheld his constitutional duty to release the Pryde Tribunal’s report on the allegations against the DPP.

You can read it here: https://bit.ly/3DWEDfu 

It is accompanied by the following statement on the government’s Facebook page:

REPORT OF THE TRIBUNAL APPOINTED TO REVIEW ALLEGATIONS OF MISBEHAVIOUR AGAINST MR. CHRISTOPHER PRYDE

7 January 2025 – A three-member Tribunal was appointed under section 112 of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji to inquire into allegations of misbehaviour against the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mr. Christopher Pryde. 

Mr. Justice Anare Tuilevuka chaired the Tribunal while the other two members are Mr. Justice Chaitanya Lakshman and Mr. Justice Samuela Qica. 

The members of the Tribunal submitted their Report to the President, His Excellency Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu on Monday 23rd December 2024. His Excellency has completed his perusal of the Report after which he conducted necessary consultations and received advise on the Report and its recommendations. 

In its Report, the Tribunal concluded unanimously that the two allegations made against Mr. Pryde, have not been made out and have advised His Excellency that Mr. Pryde ought not to be removed. 

His Excellency commends the Tribunal Chairman and Members for their Report and excellent service to the nation. Their Final Report contributes important jurisprudence for the first time, on the definition of “misbehaviour” which is not defined in the Constitution. 

This valuable jurisprudence therefore sets a precedent and will assist the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) in considering complaints against judicial officers as well as the DPP and other quasi-judicial officers appointed by the JSC. 

The Tribunal also made recommendations on the importance of guiding policies in the absence of regulations regarding the evaluation of complaints against judicial and quasi-judicial officers. 

The Report states that policies would provide a framework for executive action and ensure that decisions are consistent, transparent and accountable. Further, that the JSC may consider developing a clear policy pursuant to section 138(2)-(9) of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji. 

Today, His Excellency the President has written to Mr. Christopher Pryde along with a copy of the Report of the Tribunal. To implement an orderly resumption of duties, Mr. Pryde’s 13 April 2023 suspension from office shall be revoked in the following manner:

i. The 4th September 2019 Agreement of Service between Mr. Christopher Pryde and the Government of the Republic of Fiji is to take effect immediately;
ii. Mr. Pryde’s unpaid salary and benefits shall be repaid immediately;
iii. Mr. Pryde is to report to the Chairperson of the Judicial Services Commission, whose officers will hand him all official properties, laptop, mobile phones, keys and accompany him to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. 

In accordance with section 112(6) of the Constitution, the Report of the Tribunal is now published online. It may be accessed on https://bit.ly/3DWEDfu 

#peoplescoalition #FijiNews #GovernmentNews

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# THE SECRET INQUIRY WHOSE FINDINGS WE MAY NEVER KNOW (UPDATE: THOUGH WE KNOW WHO’S APPEARING AND WHEN)

Justice David Ashton-Lewis yesterday Photo: Fiji Sun

Just as we can have no confidence that Christopher Pryde will be reinstated as DPP after he was reportedly exonerated by the Tribunal investigating him for misbehaviour (see previous story), we can have no confidence that we will ever know the results of the current inquiry into the allegedly “rotten” circumstances of Barbara Malimali’s appointment as FICAC Commissioner.

Why? Because the decision to release the result of both inquiries rests with the politically compromised President and Head of State, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu – the convicted criminal and alleged child abuser who occupies State House at the pleasure of his chiefly subject and patron, the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka.

As Grubsheet reported yesterday, Ratu Naiqama is sitting on the findings of the Pryde Tribunal in direct defiance of the terms of the Constitution. Why? Because the report is said to be highly embarrassing for the State, which has evidently failed in its attempt to nail the DPP after keeping him waiting for 21 months for a hearing and cutting off his salary for the past seven months.

As we watch the parade of witnesses now appearing before the Ashton-Lewis hearing into “Barbara-gate”, we need to ask ourselves this: If the President is prepared to defy the Constitution that stipulates that he must release the Pryde report and reinstate the DPP, what hope do we have of him releasing the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Barbara Malimali?

Because here’s the thing, Fiji. Not only is the Malimali Inquiry being held in secret, it will be up to the President when Justice David Ashton Lewis reports its findings at the end of the month whether to make them public. According to both the Judge and the Prime Minister, it will be totally at the discretion of Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu whether the report will be made available. No law will compel him to do so as in the case of the Constitutional requirement he is defying to release the Christopher Pryde findings.

So what do we think is going to happen, Fiji? Easy. Because the man has form. We can expect the President will do everything he can to protect the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, the Attorney General, Graham Leung, and everyone else involved in this squalid affair. If the law is being shamelessly broken in the Pryde matter when there is a means of legal enforcement through the Constitution, how much more will the President be able to withhold the Malimali findings when there is no law to require him to make them public.

On the first day of the Malimali Inquiry yesterday, some striking and deeply troubling things took place. We have an account today in the Fiji Sun that the Prime Minister faced a “grilling” – “intense questioning” – over the processes that led to Barbara Malimali’s appointment. But the whole story is supposition – guesswork – because we have no way of knowing what happened in the courtroom. It is closed to the media and the public and the proceedings are being held in secret.

The Sun reporter, Jone Salusalu, doesn’t know what actually happened because he wasn’t allowed in. So how could he possibly know that Sitiveni Rabuka was “grilled”? He doesn’t, aside from second hand accounts. In fact, Justice Ashton-Lewis himself has given us a very different account of the Prime Minister’s appearance – and one that is deeply troubling in itself.

“The Prime Minister acted commendably”? Seriously? It is not for the investigating judge in an inquiry of this kind to praise one of the witnesses in comments outside the court. And especially the Prime Minister, on whom the entire debacle of the Malimali affair ultimately rests.

Rather than bolstering public confidence that this whole process is one of integrity and independence, Justice Ashton Lewis has heightened existing suspicions about the nature of his relationship with Sitiveni Rabuka – reportedly members of the same prayer group and fellow parishioners at Butt Street Methodist Church.

The point is that even if there is no question about the Judge’s integrity, the fact that this inquiry is being held in secret is a big impediment to convincing the Fijian people that it is being conducted properly. Because it is not in the least bit transparent. And there is no guaranteed accountability because it will be up to a man with form in suppressing the result of an inquiry – the President sitting on the Pryde report – whether you and I get to see the Barbara Malimali findings.

It was also troubling to see the man who we pay to keep the bastards honest – the Opposition leader, Inia Seruiratu – supporting this inquiry as a “good thing”, secrecy and all. It raises fresh questions about Seruiratu’s judgment.

Hello? There is no guarantee that we will “know the truth” because we won’t hear the evidence. It is secret. And the convicted criminal and alleged child abuser who occupies the presidency and is sitting on the result of another inquiry doesn’t have to release the Ashton-Lewis report if he doesn’t want to release it. I repeat: Whether it is made public is solely at Ratu Naiqama’s discretion.

Once again, the Opposition leader completely misses the point and doesn’t seem to understand the issues, which gives us precious little confidence about his ability to take on the government at the next election and have any chance of winning.

Memo Inia: Please read Naisa Koroi‘s editorial in today’s Fiji Sun. You will learn something about proper process in a democracy that seems to have escaped your attention. Wake up!

Naisa Koroi is spot on. There was no need to declare this inquiry secret. If there were matters involving criminal behaviour that are currently under investigation, then by all means close the court and hold an “in camera” hearing for that portion of the evidence.

But the hearing as a whole should have been open to both the media and the public. Why? Because when it comes to allegations of “rotten” processes and claims and counterclaims of wrongdoing by the protagonists, the evidence the world over is that sunlight is the best disinfectant. The rot not only has to be cleaned but seen to be cleaned for public confidence to be retained in any democracy’s institutions.

It is an outrage that something as important as the appointment and conduct of our anti-corruption watchdog should be examined in secret, with the decisions resting with one judge and his assisting counsel. And even more of an outrage that the convicted criminal who is our Head of State gets to decide whether the findings are released when he is utterly compromised politically and is already sitting on one important case.

Justice Ashton Lewis might think he had a good first day. But for the rest of us, it was a disaster in terms of confidence in the process. Another nail in the coffin of public confidence in the criminal justice system in Fiji and in the integrity of the State.

————–

Today’s Fiji Sun front page. Pure supposition based on second hand accounts.

And today’s coverage in the Fiji Times on the “veil of secrecy” over the Malimali Inquiry. Andrew Naidu‘s description is dead right.

UPDATE: Tuesday AM:

We can’t lift the veil of secrecy but we can tell you who the witnesses are and when they are appearing.

Those yesterday and those to come are a “who’s who” of the establishment. No wonder they wanted to keep it secret.

Talk about an Opposition Leader Lite. A disturbing image from yesterday’s hearing that might well explain Inia Seruiratu’s praise for the process.

Whose side are you on, Inia? Rabuka’s or the people’s? Because if you don’t provide the electorate with an alternative, what’s the point? The big new salary? The new house?

And why haven’t you demanded the release of the Christopher Pryde findings? Your silence on that is deafening. Start opposing or get out of the way.

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# FOR FIJI’S MINORITIES, WE ARE NOW FOUR VOTES AWAY FROM CATASTROPHE

Photo: Fiji Times

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka‘s tactic of using taxpayer funds to acquire the votes of previously independent former members of FijiFirst by buying them off with ministerial positions has now given him control of 70 per cent of the parliament. And he is just four votes short of the magic 75 per cent that will enable him to change the Constitution.

Change to what? It’s a question Grubsheet, for one, has been asking for months without getting a single answer from the Prime Minister or anyone else who wants to alter the supreme law. Does it include abolishing the common and equal citizenry and the common identity that Fiji’s minorities secured for the first time in the 2013 Constitution? We have to suspect that it does, given the Prime Minister’s silence and his commitment to indigenous supremacy that goes back to his coups of 1987.

If they have any sense of self-preservation, the nation’s minorities should be deeply worried. Because all it will take now is for four members of the Group of 16 former FijiFirst members to be enticed across the floor of the parliament with the promise of riches at the taxpayer’s expense for Rabuka to begin changing the Constitution legally.

What other people’s money can buy you

He would have the support to achieve the 75 per cent threshold in the parliament required under the Constitution to alter it – an extraordinary achievement that most would have thought impossible until now because the bar is set so high yet is now within reach. The craven nature of our politicians and the temptation of salaries that went through the roof last year make acquiring those elusive four remaining votes tantalisingly close.

Of course, even if the Prime Minister were to find four more traitors to betray the principles of the party on whose coattails they rode to power and achieve the magic 75 per cent, the Constitution stipulates that he would still have to get 75 per cent of voters to agree to change in a national referendum. But who is to say that constitutional provision would withstand the first barrier being surmounted – the fact that 75 per cent of the nation’s elected representatives had voted for change?

The Coalition has already played so fast and loose with the supreme law and Rabuka and those around them are so determined to alter it that it is the easiest thing in the world to imagine them going to the country and saying: “75 per cent of your elected representatives support change, parliament is the ultimate authority in the country, therefore there is no need for a costly referendum and we are forging ahead without it”.

This makes the question of which parts of the Constitution they want changed a burning issue of the moment. Yet the Prime Minister and his supporters are continually getting away with avoiding the hard questions about whether change includes removing the common and equal citizenry (equal votes of equal value) and the common identity (everyone Fijian). For non-indigenous citizens – close to one third of the nation – these are the only provisions that really matter. Because to revert to the constitutions of the past will again establish us as second class citizens in the land of our birth. And that is simply unacceptable.

Were the Prime Minister to say: “Look, the common and equal citizenry and the common identity aren’t in question and will remain”, he would do a great deal to reassure the minorities that their rights will be respected. But he isn’t doing that. Far from it. There is a constant mantra about “changing the constitution” but neither he nor anyone else is addressing the elephant in the room. What change? And it is a question that must be answered before we go any further.

With the appointment of the six new ministers and assistant ministers from the G9 (we were told it was seven in the media yesterday but only six were sworn in), there has been a mixed reaction, most of it bad. The Prime Minister said with a straight face that it wouldn’t involve any extra burden on the taxpayer “because it is already in the budget”. Bullsh*t. Of course it involves extra expense and the average Fijian knows it. And it is already clear from the public reaction that the people simply aren’t buying Rabuka’s lasulasu-jhoot.

What happened?

And what happened with Siromi Turaga? The Fiji Times front page yesterday said he was gone from the Justice Ministry based on the Prime Minister saying “yes” to the question: “Is Siromi Turaga being reassigned? “But there was no announcement yesterday and while visibly chastened, the architect of the Pryde and Nakarawa debacles is still in the justice portfolio. For the moment.

With Sitiveni Rabuka at the helm, the government lurches from one crisis to another and the Fijian people have come to expect poor governance and instability as a semi-permanent state. But it doesn’t mean they accept it. Disillusion is spreading as fast as a California wildfire and astonishingly, extends today to Fred Wesley‘s editorial in the normally supine Fiji Times.

When even Fred gets restive and turns his attention from sport to politics, we can be sure that the chronic incompetence, cynicism and gross opportunism of these clowns is really starting to bite.

————-

The Fiji Sun

Fiji Times

Fred is finally stirred into action…

Strangely, the Fiji Sun is taking a more conciliatory line…

But the view on the street is not in the Prime Minister’s favour.

And finally, the last word today from Nilesh Lal – the head of Dialogue Fiji – with a withering attack on the Prime Minister and the Coalition, accusing them of “living it up” at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.

Grubsheet had cause to criticise Nilesh Lal recently over his defence of Lynda Tabuya. But on this issue, he is devastatingly spot on.

But where are the other NGOs, and especially Shamima Ali?

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Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka‘s tactic of using taxpayer funds to acquire the votes of previously independent former members of FijiFirst by buying them off with ministerial positions has now given him control of 70 per cent of the parliament. And he is just four votes short of the magic 75 per cent that will enable […]

The post # FOR FIJI’S MINORITIES, WE ARE NOW FOUR VOTES AWAY FROM CATASTROPHE first appeared on grubsheet.

2025-01-10T18:54:01.000Z

The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families

The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco)


The post The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families appeared first on Global Research.


http://dlvr.it/TDZDT0

If You Remember This Man, Your Faith in Peace Will Never Die

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History: Adolph Hitler was Financed by Wall Street, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England

Numerous U.S. conglomerates invested in Nazi Germany’s arms industry. "Both GM and Ford went along with the conversion of their German plants to military production" (WP)


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