Prosecutor told to read, understand facts

Suva High Court prosecutor Eoghan Samisoni was advised by Justice Thushara Rajasinghe on Friday to read all the pages of legal documents in order to ascertain facts of the case.

Justice Rajasinghe sounded the advice after Mr Samisoni informed him that he was not aware that the accused, Melvin Atish Ram, had absconded more than once on previous occasions.

Ram is charged with indecently insulting or annoying any person and criminal trespass.

The court heard that Mr Samisoni had previously indicated that the State was not objecting to Ram’s bail.

The accused had been refused bail in the Nasinu Magistrates Court on October 27, 2017 and consequently filed a Petition of Appeal in the High Court.

He appealed on the grounds that the learned magistrate had erred in law when he failed to consider the accused’s presumption of innocence in determining his bail. He also appealed that the learned magistrate had erred in law when he considered that there was a likelihood that the accused would commit an offence whilst on bail to justify public interest when there was no evidence adduced to that effect. Justice Rajasinghe refused Ram’s bail application and said that he had failed to appear in court on a number of occasions without giving any proper or valid excuse. He said even after he was arrested and remanded on August 31, 2017 for another matter it was his sureties’ duty to inform the court about his situation.

Justice Rajasinghe said he did not find the possibility of a delay in hearing for Ram’s other cases as a sufficient ground to grant him bail.

“It is the duty of the learned magistrate to take this issue into consideration and fix these two matters for hearing on an earliest possible date,” Justice Rajasinghe said. He refused and dismissed the appeal and directed the learned magistrate to take the hearings of Ram’s two criminal cases on the earliest possible date.

Ram’s lawyer Parnish Kumar has indicated that they intend to appeal the matter to the Fiji Court of Appeal.

They were given 30 days to do so.