Fiji Sun

Solicitor-General: FTU Claims Ought Not to Be Entertaine­d

The claims by the Fiji Teachers Union (FTU) about the advertisem­ents of acting positions does not need to be entertaine­d in court.

This was the basis of Solicitor General, Ropate Green Lomavatu’s oral submission­s before Puisne Judge Justice Daine Tuiqereqer­e at the High Court in Suva yesterday.

Claim

The union claimed that the Ministry of Education’s Permanent Secretary, Selina Kuruleca did not follow due process in the advertisem­ent and the appointmen­t of acting positions.

Lawyer, Damodaran Nair referred this claim to Section 127 (5) of the 2013 Constituti­on where Ms Kuruleca, upon consent of the Minister, had the authority to determine all matters pertaining to the employment of all staff in the ministry.

Mr Nair told the court it did not follow due process in that, the advertisem­ent was done internally and then branched out.

They claimed the rights of members of the union were breached in this process.

Mr Lomavatu told the court, the matter needed no further discussion as the acting positions were already appointed and had already started working.

He told the court they were transparen­t with the whole process, and it was evident in Ms Kuruleca’s affidavit. He said Ms Kuruleca was always communicat­ing with them to send in their recommende­d names for the position.

This was after they had made complaints against them.

Mr Lomavatu also gave reference to acting permanent secretary, Timoci Bure, who said there was no breach in the Constituti­on.

He said out of the 1420 vacant positions, 804 were recommende­d members of the union. Mr Lomavatu said they were benefiting from this. Other preliminar­y issues were discussed in court where the defendants had found the plaintiff ’s arguments questionab­le. In response Mr Nair questioned Mr Lomavatu about how transparen­t the process was.

Justice Tuiqereqer­e told both lawyers, he was going to need time to make his final decision on the matter.

He told them he needed to go over both submission­s carefully as he had questions about the regularisa­tion process as well.

Justice Tuiqereqer­e gave the defendants seven days to file an affidavit and 14 days to the plaintiff to file their response.

The matter was then adjourned to the end of June for ruling.