Moral victory for Chaudhry

SUVA - Fiji's High Court yesterday ordered the pre-coup Administration of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry reinstated, but the military promptly threatened to block any such move.

The ruling appears to be only a moral victory for Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian leader, who was toppled in a May coup and held hostage. Without military backing it would be impossible to make the judge's ruling stick.

"In real political terms, there is no evidence that the legal solution will matter very much," said Suva-based University of South Pacific associate professor Scott MacWilliam. "Fiji now has a Government that is dependent entirely on military support."

Judge Anthony Gates said in his ruling that the present Government was unlawful and unconstitutional.

The military, which appointed the post-coup Government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase as part of a deal with the rebels to free Chaudhry, said it would immediately place a stay order on the ruling pending an appeal.

Chaudhry welcomed the court ruling in a short statement and urged the present Administration to return Fiji to democracy.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said the ruling was a signal to Fiji to speed up a return to democracy. "The sooner the Government, unconstitutional as it is in Fiji, comes up with a clear timetable to return to constitutional democracy, the better," she said at the Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Brunei.

Failed businessman George Speight and gunmen stormed Parliament in May and toppled the Chaudhry Government in the name of indigenous rights. Chaudhry was released after 56 days and the military appointed an interim indigenous Fijian Government. Speight is in jail awaiting trial on treason charges.

A failed military mutiny on November 2 by the special forces unit that backed Speight's coup further rocked Fiji.

"The George Speight coup was unsuccessful in its attempt to overthrow the democratically elected Government of Mahendra Chaudhry," the judge said.

He ordered deposed President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara to summon an immediate sitting of Parliament so Chaudhry's multiracial Government could resume running Fiji.

Gates said abrogation of the 1997 multiracial constitution was wrong and that the makeup of Fiji's multi-racial pre-coup Parliament was still intact.

The High Court ruling, handed down amid tight security in the western city of Lautoka, stems from a case by a Fiji Indian who was displaced by the coup and forced to live in a refugee camp. There are a series of individual cases pending which challenge the post-coup rule.

The Qarase Administration has said it plans to rule for the next 18 months, after which it will hold fresh elections.

- REUTERS