Nazhat Shameem

Nazhat Shameem is a former Fijian judge of Pakistani and Indian descent.^[1]

Background

From 1994 to 1999 she was Director of Public Prosecutions after serving as a prosecutor for ten years. She is a graduate of Sussex University and Cambridge University, and is a Barrister of the Inner Temple in London. She holds a Master of Laws and a Master of Philosophy in criminology. She is a former chairperson of Fiji Children's Coordinating Committee for Children and is particularly interested in the way the justice system affects women and children. She has attended conferences internationally and has delivered papers on corruption, judicial transparency and gender equality.

She was appointed to the bench in 1999 as Fiji's first, and 2007 so far only, Indo-Fijian female High Court judge. Justice Shameem is in the criminal jurisdiction of the High Court of Fiji.

Shameem is best known for her trials since the 2000 Fijian coup d'état conviction and sentencing of perpetrators of the 2000 Fijian coup d'état, in which the government of Mahendra Chaudhry was deposed in May 2000. She also heard a number of cases in which she was very critical of prison conditions for remand prisoners in Fiji. In 2005, she declared the remand centre in Suva inhumane and degrading and in breach of the Fiji Constitution. She also heard a case on mandatory imprisonment for drug offenders in 2001, and declared such sentences as disproportionatly severe and in breach of Section 25 of the Constitution. The Drugs decree was later repealed by Parliament.

In 2004, Justice Shameem was a keynote speaker at the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission's international conference 'Beyond Bullying : Sex/Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Class/Status - Celebrating Difference, Embracing Equality', held in Hobart, Tasmania. Her colleague, Justice Tony Gates (in 2007 Acting Chief Justice of the Fiji High Court) presented the after dinner speech at the conference.

Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki was forcefully removed by armed military officers and policemen from the Chief Justice's chambers as he arrived for work on 19 January 2007.^[2]

He was them summarily suspended by the President of Fiji pending disciplinary action. He later accepted a settlement with the Bainimarama government of a lump sum, his pension and the dropping of all charges in return for his resignation.

Before his suspension, no Acting appointment was able to be made by him. In his absence, a meeting of the Judicial Services Commission made up of the President of the Fiji Law Society, the Chairman of the Public Service Commission and the Chief Justice was chaired instead of the Chief Justice, by Justice Shameem. She chaired the meeting as the most senior judge of the High Court and with the concurrence of the two other members of the Commission. The Commission agreed to recommend the next most senior judge, Justice Anthony Gates as the Acting Chief Justice, to the President Ratu Iloilo. Justice Gates was then appointed by the President as Acting Chief Justice. The Law Society reneged on its agreement to the chairing of the Commission, and brought a judicial review action against the acting appointment of the Chief Justice of the Commission under the leadership of a subsequent president of the Law Society. The matter was heard at leave stage by Justice Andrew Bruce, a Hong Kong Queens Counsel, who found that Justice Shameem had acted in accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding signed by all the High Court judges in August 2005, including the then Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki. That Memorandum had said that in a crisis, when the Chief Justice is unable to perform any of the functions of his office, the most senior judge of the High Court will perform those functions to ensure the survival of the judiciary. At the leave hearing, the Law Society conceded that Justice Shameem had acted in good faith and in the interests of the judiciary, but challenged the constitutionality of the chairing of the Commission in the absence of the Chief Justice. Leave was granted by Justice Bruce, but he said that the Law Society faced an "up-hill battle" to prove its case Before the full hearing could proceed, the Fiji Court of Appeal, made up of judges appointed by the challenged Judicial Services Commission, and post-2006, found that the Bainimarama government was unlawfully appointed, and ultra vires of the President's powers. On the 11th of April 2009, all the judges were removed from office by the President of Fiji, following the abrogation of the Constitution. Many were then re-appointed by the Administration of Justice Decree 2009. Justice Nazhat Shameem was not re-appointed. It is not clear whether she was not asked to be re-appointed or whether she was asked and she refused. She now runs a legal consultancy which mainly conducts legal skills workshops for lawyers. Her workshops include sessions on advocacy, human rights and gender equality.

Personal life

She is married to Aslam Khan, the Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Fiji. They have a child who is studying Law in the United Kingdom.

Shameem is the sister of Shaista Shameem, Director of the Fiji Human Rights Commission. Her other siblings are Dr. Nikhat Shameem, an academic in the field of linguistics, and Dr. Raffat Shameem, a Cardiologist. Their father was from Multan, Pakistan while their mother was born in Fiji.

References