what Justice Shameem says is old news - nothing new.

the "system" is rigged and there are still players within the Registry who are doing the "rigging" - in the High Court in Suva there's Vivek. thats well known over here - thats why the millitary was looking at all these players for a long time after Dec 2006 - C D Singh the Senior Court Officer running the Registry was suspended last year staright after the coup d'etat - but many of the players are still in the system - including Vivek.

its a very very old system - dates can be played around with - and that has a huge implication on cases. documents can be played around with - and that has a huge implication on cases. these guys have learnt to "cover" their tracks over long experience - cases can be delayed - applications can be delayed.

back in the 1990's there was even a Magistrate (now long gone) who conducted his cases at the front lobby counter when the Magistrate's Court used to be operated out of the FFA building in Suva - whenever he needed to go play golf he just stood outside the front lobby and "fast tracked" his cases - this Magistrate never had his court sessions go past 10am - because he had to go and play golf.

i remember him well because i was starting as a lawyer at about the time he was getting on the CJ's nerves - eventually they terminated his contract - it was crazy.

another magistrate was so notoriously corrupt they had to have a Commission of Inquiry into his conduct - just to figure out how corrupt he was.

those were the "good" old days.

it was that ridiculous - but its not new. not new at all.

Justice Shameem knows what she is talking about - as DPP back in the early 1990's she faced the brunt of it. she even had her lawyers thrown in the Court cell by Magistrate's for simply vigurously advocating and representing the DPP in criminal proceedings !

you will never find anywhere in the Commonwealth where that kind of situation occurred - but it happened here in Fiji - DPP officers were thrown into cells for what was very very very loosely called "contempt" - or in the common parlance of that time for "irritating the Judge".

it was ridiculous.

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JUDGE shopping is the most serious problem facing the judiciary in modern Fiji says Justice Nazhat Shameem.

She said judge shopping - a process by which lawyers tried to pick a particular judge to hear their cases - was a subject about which the legal profession was noticeably silent or in denial.

She said one of the mechanisms of preventing judicial corruption was appointing judges and magistrates on merit.

She made the comments at the Transparency international workshop on access to justice in Lautoka yesterday.

"They should be competent, but should also be honest hardworking and ethical. The appointment process is important," she said.

"Justice Connors in his recent report suggested that our system of appointment lacks transparency, that there is a need for greater community representation in and for greater accountability of the processes of the judicial services commission.

"Certainly that was the purpose of the involvement of the Law society in the commission. Whatever we might think about the current position, entrenched as it is in our constitution, I believe it to be preferable to the American system of electing judges or the Australian system to where appointments are made directly by government thus opening the judiciary to allegations of control by central government."

Justice Shameem said the second mechanism was to adopt a code of ethics for the judiciary.

She said Fiji had a code of ethics based on the principles of impartiality, independence, propriety and diligence but there was no sanction provision in it.

"The third mechanism is case management. But case management is about judges managing the list and not clerks so that if a lawyer wishes to abuse the system for his or her corporate client, he or she will have to bribe the judge," she said.

"Case management must be computerized and transparent. Case allocations must be random so no one can pick a judge. There must be a vision for disposal timetables.

"Delay is not only an operational problem in Fiji which leads to a loss of confidence in the judiciary."