The Fiji Independent Commission against Corruption was noticeably absent from the first consultation on the review of the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Division within the Magistrate and High Courts.

This absence raised serious concerns this morning.

According to the team from the Attorney-General’s Office, both FICAC and the Judiciary Department were invited to participate in the discussions, but they failed to attend the consultation.

Principal Legal Officer, Sophina Ali emphasized the consultation dates were widely publicized in the dailies on Saturday and were also posted on the official Facebook page of the Fiji Government.

“So we will summarize whatever feedback we get from today. It’s still possible that FICAC and the judiciary will write to us at the addresses that have been provided to you either in writing or hand deliver it to us or by email. This is not to say that they won’t comment and once we have all the feedback, there is a cutoff date of 26th of May and if anybody wants to make comments, they are free to provide comments by the 26th of May.”

Unfortunately, the attendees at today’s consultation only included Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, David Toganivalu, his team, five staff members from the Attorney-General’s Office, and members of the media.

During the consultation, it became evident that the attending team had no access to crucial statistics on the number of cases dealt with in the Anti-Corruption Division Courts and its overall effectiveness.

Acting DPP David Toganivalu clarified the purpose of the consultation is to gather views and decide on whether corruption courts should be removed, allowing corruption cases to follow the normal court process.

“The need to have FICAC or have the statistics with us was to try and see whether these corruption courts have been value adding, have they successful, have they met the needs on why it was made but since we don’t have the statistics, we don’t have FICAC here today, I guess we can’t put a definite answer on whether it’s actually working or not.”

The Anti-Corruption Division Bill, enacted by Parliament in 2021, was a significant step towards establishing a specialized division within Fiji’s judicial system to exclusively address anti-corruption matters.

Meanwhile, FICAC is yet to respond to questions from FBC News regarding the concerns raised during the consultation.

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