Suva lawyer Richard Naidu is a free man after the Suva High Court ruled this week that no conviction be recorded against him.

High Court judge Justice Daniel Goundar ruled on Tuesday that the charge of contempt scandalising the court against Naidu be dismissed.

He said summons to set aside the judgment that had found Naidu guilty in November last year was by consent and was dismissed as he did not have jurisdiction.

• READ MORE: Other Richard Naidu reports

Justice Gounder ordered the parties to bear their own costs.

While delivering his judgment, Justice Gounder said while mitigation and sentencing were pending, a new government had come into power and a new Attorney-General had been appointed.

He said that after the change of government [FijiFirst lost the general election last December], Justice Jude Nanayakkara, who had been previously presiding over the case, had resigned as a Fiji judge and left the jurisdiction without concluding proceedings.

Justice Gounder said the new Attorney-General, Siromi Turaga had taken a different position regarding the proceedings, which he had expressed in an affidavit filed in support of the summons to dismiss the proceedings.

Ruling set aside
Turaga stated that his view was that the proceedings should never have been instituted against Naidu in the first place.

In the affidavit, Turaga said he had conveyed to Naidu that his view was that the ruling of 22 November 2022 ought to be set aside and the proceedings dismissed.

He added that Naidu had confirmed he would not seek to recover any costs he had incurred in defending the proceedings.

Justice Gounder said the Attorney-General played an important function as the guardian of public interest in contempt proceedings which alleged conduct scandalising the court.

Lawyer Richard Naidu’s conviction ruled not to be recorded and the charge of contempt dismissed. Video: Fijivillage.com

He said the position of the Attorney-General had shifted and he was not seeking an order of committal against Naidu.

The judge said Turaga dkid not support the findings that Naidu was guilty of contempt scandalising the court.

He said it had not been suggested that the present Attorney-General was acting unfairly as the representative of public interest in consenting to an order setting aside the judgement.

Facebook posting
Naidu was found guilty in November last year by High Court judge Justice Jude Nanayakkara for contempt scandalising the court.

Naidu posted on his Facebook page a picture of a judgment in a case represented by his associate that had the word “injunction” misspelt [as “injection”], and then made some comments that he was pretty sure the applicant wanted an injunction.

The committal proceeding was brought against Naidu by the then Attorney-General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Naidu was represented by Jon Apted while Feizal Haniff represented the Attorney-General.

Rashika Kumar is a Fijivillage reporter. Republished with permission.

Many current Papua New Guinean parliamentarians are highly respected individuals in their own areas – successful in business, education or public service.

With such backgrounds, they routinely attract great respect. This drives their popularity and ability to attract votes when they make known their political aspirations. Voters put their trust in these people.

But when politicians attain public office, their pronouncements, decisions and actions at times may attract criticism and opposition. Politicians must be able to face such scrutiny when they decide to come out of their private life and become public figures.

Many parts of Papua New Guineas have misconceived perceptions of leadership. We mix Melanesian leadership style with Western leadership.

In Melanesia, a leader is one who owns many pigs, marries many wives and contributes greatly to society in terms of wealth-sharing and problem-solving.

With the introduction of the Westminster government system, the perception of leadership was different. PNG’s democratic system provides that any politician or public office holder who is not performing should be able to be questioned by any member of the public.

Recently, many local youths have been led to believe the tribal system or Melanesian perspective should prevail and many lives have been lost in related violence. Injuries have been sustained and homes and families have been destroyed.

Personal attack
This mostly happens when the information on the Western perspective is not disseminated. When we want to raise issues in social media forums (the only medium left for us to openly discuss and express ourselves) some people turn to personal attack or seem to oppose every idea put forward.

To post a question about government services and start debating and creating discussion is not wrong. But in PNG, it seems to be.

Some people think we should respect politicians and not criticise them on social media. Well, I hold the opinion that you can respect them as an individual but as politicians they are answerable to questions by any member of the community.

Holding onto the Melanesian ways of respecting even non-performing public office holders or politicians is totally unacceptable.

Let’s demand what is rightfully ours while still respecting them as private citizens and successful people in their own right.

Let’s know our rights and insist that politicians should act in our interests and then we can accord them our respect.

The more we confuse traditional respect with present day bad behaviour, the more we compromise with corruption.

There is a clear distinction between a Melanesian leadership perception and a Western perception.

The more we confuse ourselves with Melanesian and Western perceptions, the less government services we see in the communities and the more corruption is right in front of us.

Corruption is a real threat to the growth of the nation. It is a double-edged sword that hangs over our head.

Together we must fight against corruption for a better PNG tomorrow.

• Corruption threat to PNG – is the death penalty the answer?