Judge to decide today on Radrodro’s trial proceedings
The Anti-Corruption High Court will deliver its judgment today on whether the trial of SODELPA Member of Parliament, Salote Radrodro, will proceed or otherwise.
On Monday, Radrodro’s lawyer Simione Valenitabua filed a motion seeking that the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) in the Anti-Corruption High Court of Suva and the charges of false information to a public servant and obtaining financial advantage be permanently stayed for abuse of process arising from the same conduct being statutebarred under the Crimes Act 2009.
Mr Valenitabua is also seeking that alternatively if the criminal case was not permanently stayed, then the court lacked jurisdiction to continue to hear and determine the criminal case on the ground that the offences in both counts were summary offences and should be tried in the Anti-Corruption Magistrates Court under the summary jurisdiction.
Mr Valenitabua in the hearing yesterday submitted that Radrodro was being prosecuted for the same conduct under one section of the Crimes Act that could no longer be charged under another section of the same Act which dealt directly with the conduct.
Additionally, he said FICAC had charged Radrodro with an offence based on time-barred conduct, but Radrodro was also now exposed to a more serious punishment under the Crimes Act.
He added that under these circumstances, it was an abuse of the court process for FICAC to charge her for giving false information under Section 201 (a) of the Crimes Act and exposed her to a more serious punishment when the same conduct attracted a lesser punishment under Section 180 (a), (b), and (c) of the same Crimes Act was statute-barred.
Mr Valenitabua claimed that FICAC manifestly intended to avoid the statutory time limit in Section 187 (1) and (2) of the Crimes Act over Section 180 of the Act.
He said Radrodro’s Member of Parliament Declaration Form (MPDF) was a statutory declaration as the secretary-general to Parliament formulated the form derived their power from the Constitution which was an Act of Parliament.
FICAC’S counsel Ashish Nand said allegations made by Mr Valenitabua and his client and the orders sought in the application had no merit.
This was the fourth application brought forward by Mr Valenitabua.
He said the irony of this was that Mr Valenitabua alleged that the prosecution of this case was an abuse of process.
However, FICAC stated that his application was an abuse of process.
Mr Nand said the MPDF was not a statutory declaration pursuant to any Act.
He said the MPDF was an administrative issue where the secretary-general was locating a range of information including Radrodro’s.
He said Section 180 and Section 201 were different offences and that Section 180 could not be a possibility for Radrodro to be charged under.
Mr Nand said prosecution decided what charges were to be brought because they had assessed the evidence, however, there was no room for choice because the MPDF was not a statutory declaration.
Mr Nand sought for the application to be dismissed and prosecution be awarded costs in this application.
He asked the court to also order for the trial to commence without any further delays.
Anti-Corruption High Court Judge, Justice Thushara Kumarage, will deliver the judgment today.