Labour welcomes judjment in Fiji Times contempt case

[posted 23 Jan 2009,1630]

The Fiji Labour Party welcomes the High Court ruling in the contempt case against The Fiji Times and hopes that it will serve as a deterrent to the media to act more responsibly.

The FLP has maintained for sometime that there is too much talk about media freedom, and not enough on media responsibility and accountability.

“The Labour Party has had a long standing grievance against The Fiji Times, in particular, for biased, irresponsible, defamatory and selective reporting,” said Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi, FLP’s acting Secretary-General.

“Media freedom has been abused at whim to serve certain political and personal agendas. We hope that this will now stop and that the Media in Fiji will exercise utmost caution and restraint in running articles, commentaries and opinion pieces that are clearly libelous and defamatory,” he said.

The judgment found that the Editor of the Fiji Times had been either “recklessly indifferent” or “grossly negligent” in running a letter that he knew was clearly in contempt of court.

“We have always maintained that the Media must be held accountable for its actions and we are happy that a fine and a deterrent, albeit suspended, sentence was imposed in this case,” Mr Vayeshnoi said.