The Fiji Law Society has kept in touch with the Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and all parliamentarians to communicate their profound worry at the Government’s expressed aim to utilize the assisted parliamentary method to discuss two bills managing an Anti Corruption Division in the courts and the expulsion of the assessor framework in High Court preliminaries.
The Law Society has approached Sayed-Khaiyum and different parliamentarians in an open letter to concede banter on these two bills this week and rather to guarantee that the proposed laws are managed as per Chapter 7 of the Standing Orders.
It says this will permit an appropriate public meeting cycle to happen that guarantees exhaustive thought of every one of the bills.
The Law Society says the proposed changes are major to basic freedoms.
It says the proposition to make a “particular” division of the High Court to consider defilement cases needs cautious survey.
The attorneys say the idea that solitary expert appointed authorities are able to manage defilement cases is available to challenge.
The Law Society says debasement is a criminal offense, and Judges and Magistrates are by definition educated in the law, including criminal law.
Be that as it may, it says an assorted seat, offering alternate points of view and perspectives, is a significant strength in criminal equity.
The Law Society says surely there are other more genuine and squeezing needs inside the equity framework that warrant consideration: a sexual offenses and kid insurance division is a more squeezing need than against debasement.
It likewise says the bill managing the Abolition of Assessors addresses a significant change in and the destroying of a vital piece of the organization of criminal equity in Fiji.
The Law Society says assessors have had a basic influence in High Court criminal preliminaries for more than 120 years and they are essential insurance of a denounced individual’s entitlement to a reasonable preliminary.
It says the bedrock of our criminal equity framework is that a charged individual’s blame or blamelessness is resolved (or believed upon for Fiji’s situation) by their companions, by individuals from the local area.
The Law Society says this is a custom we share with essentially any remaining precedent-based law nations (counting Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, who utilize the jury framework in a similar way).
The legal advisors say assessor support supports public trust in our legal framework since it gives straightforwardness.
The Society says eliminating public interest from criminal equity will diminish straightforwardness and disintegrate public certainty, and leaving the subject of blame or guiltlessness in genuine cases to a solitary adjudicator, without a charged having a decision in the matter, is neither reasonable nor just.
They say they additionally unequivocally contradict managing the two bills under Order 51 of the Parliamentary Standing Orders as there isn’t anything earnest brought up in both of them.
The Law Society says these bills ought not be passed in this meeting of Parliament.
We have looked for a reaction from Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. He is yet to react.
-Fiji Village
