Last week, oral argument wrapped up in one of the most important legal cases in Fiji's history: Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase is challenging the coup which overthrew him in court. To my eye, Qarase's case is open and shut: Fiji has constitutional sovereignty, and s109 (1) of the Fijian Constitution is very specific about when and how the Prime Minister can be removed and a new one appointed:
The President may not dismiss a Prime Minister unless the Government fails to get or loses the confidence of the House of Representatives and the Prime Minister does not resign or get a dissolution of the Parliament.The obvious interpretation of this clause was backed by the Fijian Court of Appeal in their judgement on Yabaki v President of the Republic of the Fiji Islands, a case over the last coup:
The Fiji Constitution, by the prescriptiveness of s109(1), denies the President such a right [to dismiss the Prime Minister with only "soundings" of the feeling of the House] as that given to the Governor [of Western Nigeria] in Ankitola. Consequently, it did not matter that his soundings may have indicated a general lack of support for Mr Chaudhry or indeed that Mr Chaudhry himself supported a dissolution - albeit with himself as caretaker Prime Minister. The framers of the Constitution appear to have been at pains to circumscribe the President’s power of dismissal of a Prime Minister and to have required the House and not the President to determine whether the Prime Minister has lost its confidence.The military regime's response has been to assert that the President has absolute and unreviewable monarchical power - no matter what the constitution says. That claim didn't fly in the United States, and it shouldn't fly in Fiji. Unfortunately, since the coup, the military have carefully stacked the judiciary (and many of the decent judges have left rather than accept an illegal appointment), so Qarase's chances of a fair hearing are fairly slim.
