Suva lawyer makes stand over police appointment
A Suva lawyer Richard Naidu has stepped down from a key commission in Fiji after the appointment of a senior military officer as acting police chief.
Transcript
A Suva lawyer Richard Naidu has stepped down from a key commission in Fiji after the appointment of a senior military officer as acting police chief.
Colonel Sitiveni Qiliho was appointed last week to stand in as Police Commissioner after Ben Groenewald left citing military interference.
Mr Naidu told Sally Round the way the acting appointment was made led him to the view there wasn't much point in remaining a member of the Constitutional Offices Commission.
RICHARD NAIDU: The Commission isn't operating in any particularly organised fashion. There are a number of vacancies which have been advertised and not filled. Take for example the Auditor-General, a really important constitutional office. That position was advertised in May. We've had no information from the secretariat on what's happened, same with the Commissioner of Corrections Services. Things tend to be done at the last minute by email and that's really why I'd reached the view that we were little more than rubber stamps.
SALLY ROUND: Can you give us a picture of how the Commission was operating in the meetings that you went to. Were people given a chance to say their piece for instance?
RN: Well I think probably it's right, not withstanding my resignation, that I respect the proceedings of the Commission, you know that took place internally, but overall it was the results that I was dissatisfied with. As I say we have at least two important constitutional offices. We have no idea what happened to the process of filling those. Certainly the manner in which the acting Commissioner of Police was appointed was unsatisfactory. Now, it's true as (the Attorney-General) Mr Sayed-Khaiyum has said that the Prime Minister as Chair of the Commission had the power to make acting appointments, but that power ... there doesn't seem to be a very clear understanding of how that power should be exercised. That's a power exercised on behalf of the members of the commission. If you are required to make an acting appointment then the proper thing to do is appoint the senior most officer of whichever organisation it is to fill the top vacancy. I think before you go out of the organisation and decide you're just going to appoint somebody else willy nilly, you owe a duty to the other members of the commission on whose behalf you are acting to at least consult them and if necessary explain your reasons for an unconventional choice.
SR: The government says that power was delegated at a meeting back in April and it was a unanimous decision to delegate that power. You're saying it's not an absolute power?
RN: I'm saying it was a power that was given for convenience. Obviously if you have a sudden resignation or even somebody going on leave, you don't want to have to call the Commission together to make what is essentially a routine decision but certainly anybody who understands how organisations of this kind should work, how delegated powers should work, should understand that's not a power to go off and do your own thing. That is a power to be exercised in routine matters for everybody's convenience and it's just not right, in the case of the police, that a sworn police officer is not appointed to fill the vacancy in the Commissioner's position, in the routine way.
SR: It would be fair to say from what can be seen on social media that your resignation is a blow for good governance on this key body. Wouldn't it have been better for you to fight for a transparent process from within rather than leaving?
RN: Certainly, one of the issues that confronted me before I'd even accepted appointment was the fact that under the constitution the Commission is already politicised. It has four government members or appointees and the opposition has two. So the question then really is, why participate at all? And the answer, I think, for me was that despite the lop-sided nature of this Commission the government leaders could choose, if they wanted to, to work consultatively with the opposition leader and her nominee but there's no real interest in that. We're really treated as rubber stamps. If you look at for example the previous Constitutional Offcies Commission, it comprised only independent members, no politicians, because the concept respected the fact that independent people should appoint independent constitutional officers so the minute you have a Constitutional Offices Commission that comprises half politicians then you're deviating from that principle straight away and when you then stack the deck by having effectively four government appointees and two for the opposition, you know ultimately who's going to win every decision. But as I said despite that, if there had been an opportunity to engage and for the parties to work together in a consultative way we could still have made something of it. But I'm very clear at this point that that's not the intention of the government's leaders.
SR: And what do you hope will come out of your resignation?
RN: I'm hoping that we can just draw attention to the fact that really the Commission is not operating as an independent, non-political Constitutional Offices Commission should, which is that independent people appoint these really important independent constitutional officers. That's what's not happening and more's the pity.
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