14 Oct 2008

Car of acting Fiji chief justice vandalised

1:35 pm on 14 October 2008

The official car of the acting Fiji chief justice was vandalised and damaged hours after the High Court validated actions by the current regime.

A Fiji police spokesman says the complaint was lodged on Fiji Day by the driver of acting chief justice Anthony Gates, the principal judge of the three-member panel of judges that threw out the deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's case.

He says the driver reported the matter after he found the number plate of the car removed.

Mr Qarase's case questioned the legality of the decisions made by the office of the president after the interim prime minister Frank Bainimarama ousted his government in a military coup in December 2006.

The judges upheld all the president's actions and promulgations since then as valid and lawful.

The Fiji Law Society president Dorsamo Naidu said last night members of the public should not to take the law into their own hands.