The findings of the Commission of Inquiry tasked with assessing the legality of the appointment of Barbara Malimali as FICAC Commissioner have been delivered to the President and the Prime Minister, with officials describing the report as containing “serious” recommendations and implications for public office appointments.
However, its contents remain confidential for now, as the President and the PM are given time to review the 400-page document.
The Commission, chaired by Justice David Ashton-Lewis and assisted by Counsel Janet Mason, concluded its hearings after a nine-week process that involved 35 witnesses. The inquiry, which initially focused on Malimali’s appointment as Commissioner, expanded in scope due to revelations during the hearings.
Speaking to the media following the handover, Justice Lewis underscored the seriousness of the report’s conclusions and highlighted the importance of allowing the Prime Minister and the President adequate time to read and digest the material.
“The recommendations are serious, the findings are serious, and that’s why it needs to be dealt with properly,” he said.
“Mrs Mason will be briefing the President, not next week, but the week after on as they read it, it’s a 400-page document. It’s quite complicated legally, and so they will read it and have questions – so what do you mean here? What should we do here, and they will ask Mrs. Mason.”
Although specific findings have not been released, the Commission confirmed the inquiry delved beyond assessing the “integrity and legality” of Malimali’s appointment process; it also touched on its connection to wider institutional frameworks.
“The TOR was wide. We had to look at – was the appointment of Ms Malimali was open, fair, carried out with integrity and in accordance with the law,” she said. “It didn’t just turn on her appointment within FICAC. There is a comment on that.”
Mason said that while the individual case may have triggered the inquiry, the more significant issues concern the structure of the institution.
“The report is about an appointment that occurred, but around that is an institution and the way that interacts with the constitutional structure in Fiji,” she said. “There are some big problems with and they are identified in the report and a subject of recommendations. So that aspect of Ms Malimali is quite small in that regard, but the rest of it and the really important part is to do with how that institution is set up, who is involved in the process of appointment, and those are the things that will last. Because we all know that you have institutions and individuals that come and go, but those institutions and their integrity remain forever. And that is what the public should keep an eye on instead of too much focus on the individual who is there.”
Justice Ashton-Lewis also defended the time taken, stating that a proper investigation must be thorough, especially when it implicates constitutional structures and governance. The Commission, originally slated to conclude in January, was extended four times because new evidence emerged.
“Now, the COI is investigative so I and Mrs Mason had to investigate things, now when you do that in many instances you are governed by a narrow TOR, but you find there is other factors that affect the TOR that we have to look at and that is why hearings that was supposed to be over in two weeks, but it took nine weeks to go through 35 witnesses.
“Now, many of those witnesses spoke and opened the doors to other matters that involved this question of the COI. And as Mrs Mason says, the area of Barbara Mali was quite small, so that decision was made there, but it also opened up a whole host of other matters that came within the TOR.”
The COI officially ends its term tomorrow.
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