18 Jun 2003

Fiji court told including Labour in Government would be bizarre

4:50 pm on 18 June 2003

Fiji's Supreme court has been told that including the Labour party in the government could produce bizarre results.

Radio Fiji reports that the lawyer representing the government, Australian QC, Steven Gagler, says power sharing could result in the prime minister, despite having majority support in the House, being outnumbered in his own cabinet.

And, that could bring more instability to the country.

The government is appealing an earlier Appeal court ruling that Labour should be part of the Qarase government.

Mr Gagler says the prime minister only has an obligation to invite the Labour party to be part of his cabinet and nothing further than that.

He says the constitution does not dictate the consequences of that invitation.

Mr Gagler says all parties in the government must agree to work together or the invitation must be seen to be declined due to disagreement.

In this case, Mr Gagler says the SDL and the Labour party did not reach an agreement on the formation of the government.