FIJI: Resolution of human rights complaints on track
Updated
The director of Fiji's Human Rights Commission Dr Shaista Shameem has rejected claims her organisation is not processing complaints quickly enough. She says of the 30 complaints filed with the Commission since the coup in December last year, only 14 remain unresolved.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speakers: Dr Shaista Shameem, director of the Fiji Human Rights Commission and newly appointed Ombudsman
SHAMEEM: As to conflict of interest both officers are public interest officers, in other words they're representatives of the people. So with respect to the Ombudsman he or she looks after the people's complaints or rights and so on with respect to maladministration by public officials. The Human Rights Commission looks at human rights violations committed by members of the state or officials of the state. So really they're kind of in a nice way all of their different hats and so on, they actually encompass the entire range of state responsibility that ought to be exercised on people's behalf.
COUTTS: It makes you a representative of the people so that means that anyone has access to you?
SHAMEEM: Yeah absolutely I mean the door has always to be open, it's a 24/7 job. I'm doing that already so it's going to be on top of that, but the Ombudsman does not have the access to the courts, so that if you get complaints from the public essentially what you do is you write reports for the particular government department or whatever that's been alleged to have committed some kind of a maladministration or not followed procedure. Whereas with the Human Rights Commission we have access to the court, in fact it's the human rights side that has the broad powers and duties and they're incredibly broad because parliament comes under the human rights law and provisions in the constitution even, so does the executive and the president. So the Human Rights Commission really has the teeth if you like.
COUTTS: Well now that you've raised the human rights issue, you are still currently the Director of the Human Rights Commission and as we know there's been a lot of complaints, well actually I don't know how many, complaints made through to you about various aspects of human rights. And I understand that you're in the process of doing six monthly complaints data update?
SHAMEEM: Yeah that's right Geraldine, actually we have received all up since December the 5th around 30 complaints, out of which only 18 were found to be within jurisdiction. We really have to look at all the complaints to see whether the Human Rights Commission has the powers and the duties and the jurisdiction to deal with the complaints. So we found 18 that were firmly within our jurisdiction and that is in terms of the bill of rights provisions of the constitution, or international human rights law or rights that come within the Human Rights Commission act. So we found 18 was in jurisdiction out of which four have been resolved completely, so that means the files are now closed, the complainants and satisfied with the conciliation conference between themselves and the military or the police, whoever it was on the other side, the respondents. Seven or eight of them we're considering referring those to the police because there's a level of forensic investigation required which we don't have the capacity for, and what will happen then is the police will do the appropriate investigation and they will report back to the commission and then we will take it forward from there. A couple of them are with the DPP's office and that's the Director of Public Prosecution, and there is currently I think some discussion going on between the police and the DPP as to how certain people who had been accused of violating human rights are going to be charged under the criminal law or some other law. So apart from the sort of, most of those that have been either closed or sent to another agency, we're still considering about 14 of them.
COUTTS: Of the remaining 14 cases and you mentioned the military and the police, is that where most of the complaints have come from?
SHAMEEM: From a very broad range of people, some ordinary members of the public, some media personnel, a couple from NGOs, so it's really across the board.
COUTTS: And so speaking of the media is someone like Francis Herman likely to come to you to get his processing or whatever charges laid, or is that because it's in the court that that's something that you wearing either hat wouldn't deal with?
SHAMEEM: We can deal with Francis Herman, there's no problem about that, I mean I think in his case it was a freedom of movement issue, he was not allowed to leave the country, and I understand that there are some investigations underway conducted by the FICAC, the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption. So if he wants to he can come to us but he hasn't so far, and there have been media queries about whether or not the Human Rights Commission could deal with it. By all means, but we don't know the facts so we can't comment any further on that.
