Cakobau v Fijian Affairs Board [1988] SPLawRp 54; [1988] SPLR 121 (27 May 1988)

[1988] SPLR 121

IN THE HIGH COURT OF FIJI

RATU EPENISA SERU CAKOBAU

v
FIJIAN AFFAIRS BOARD

Fatiaki J.
27 May 1988

Administrative law — natural justice — right to be heard — whether public servant must be afforded a right to be heard before being interdicted without pay.

Employment law — suspension without pay — lack of hearing — whether employee suspended without pay has right at common law to be heard before such suspension.

70 Contempt — conduct which frustrates and renders decision of court ineffective — such pre-emptive action can amount to contempt.

Pleading and practice — injunction — application for equitable relief — defendant voluntarily discontinued the very matters for which injunction sought — whether injunction may issue despite futility.

The plaintiff, an employee of the defendant Board, was also the son of a high chief of the province of Tailevu. In April 1988, he caused to be published in the Fiji Times a statement referring to the title of "Tin Viti". The statement prompted the Secretary for the Fijian Affairs Board to write to the plaintiff. The memorandum purported to lay charges against the plaintiff. He was at the same time advised that, pending a decision of those charges, he was suspended from the performance of his duties without pay, and that during the period of suspension he was not permitted access to official premises of the Board or official documents.

This was an inter partes application by which the plaintiff sought an injunction against the defendant Board to restrain the Board, its servants, and agents from further acting upon and/or implementing its decision to interdict the plaintiff without pay together with the prohibition on the plaintiff of access to premises of the Board.

HELD:

(1) The standing orders of the Fiji Affairs Board contain no standing order which expressly authorizes the suspension without pay of an employee of the Board who is charged with a disciplinary offence. Such a suspension without pay would, in any event, attract the rules of natural justice with the result that the plaintiff would have been entitled to a hearing before the interdiction without pay. Statement of Megarry J., in John v. Rees [1970] Ch. D. 345 at 397, applied.