February 03, 2010

Nazhat Shameem Defends Her Handiwork (Part 2)

Man oh Man! Naz give it UP already girl.

We awaken this morning to listen her now defending the military regime's new and illegal  Crimes Decree:
Fiji Media misunderstands new crime decree
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

The Fiji media has misunderstood the new criminal procedure decree, says former high court Judge Nazhat Shameem.

Shameem says the new decree specifically deals with cases that are being transferred to the High Court and not other cases.

"The provision in section 201 of the new criminal procedure decree restricts the publication of written reports or broadcasts in relation to proceedings before they are transferred to the high court, so they are referring to cases that are going to be tried in the high court or are being transferred to the high court. So for instance they would apply to murder cases or rape cases which can only be tried in the high court."

Shameem says the decree is clear on what the media can report.

"The restrictions are set out in section 201 of the Criminal Procedure Decree and the restriction is that until the transfer to the high court the media may only publish, broadcast a report of the transfer proceedings, the identity of the court, magistrate, the name, age, occupation of the accused person, the summary of the charge, the name of the lawyers and whether or not the accused person is remanded in custody or on bail."

This she says is no different from the previous laws.

“So in fact as far as restrictions on the media reporting matters in Court prior to transfer, the law hasn’t changed at all.”
Firstly Shameem asserts that "new (muzzling) decree specifically deals with cases that are being transferred to the High Court and not other cases...for instance they would apply to murder cases or rape cases".

Unfortunately she conveniently forgets to mention that the High Court is also dealing with many (otherwise clear-cut) FICAC cases involving many individuals that Bainimarama deems as enemies, which are oddly being bundled up as "consolidations" (ref: Qarase & Weleilakeba, Qarase & NLTB officials, Jalal & Tuisolia) to supposedly make it worth the High Court's time.

Shameem say's the decree is no different from previous laws. Then why the need to reiterate the obvious and roll out a new one?

If she's trying to side-step any involvement with all the rolled out draconian and illegal muzzling legislation, we're pretty sure she won't be able to resist being involved with the in-the-pipeline Media Decree.

The point here is that it's not the media's job to automatically understand all the underhanded merits of their illegal legislation. That's what she's supposed to be getting paid for as a treasonous consultant to the military regime.

She got her foot in the door by firstly working an issue close to the hearts of women in this country, like domestic violence, which essentially lulled the women into acquiescence of the broader issue of illegal legislation.

Smooth Naz. Very smooth. Not.

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