Criminal

Criminal

Crimes Decree 2009

Introduction
The Crimes Decree 2009 and the Criminal Procedure Decree 2009 will replace the existing Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code.
The new Crimes Decree, was introduced to ensure consistent sentencing handed down by the courts.

The Attorney-General added that no longer would we have a Magistrate, for instance, in Taveuni who would send a villager to nine months imprisonment for stealing a pair of flip flops as opposed to someone who had stolen $50,000 from a bank and given a suspended sentence or someone stealing a pair of flip flops in Lautoka may get a suspended sentence but the person in Taveuni goes into prison for nine months.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum also explained that the new Crimes Decree will also include provisions related to corruption, rape where there would no longer have the old rule of collaboration in respect of rape, no longer also would the sexual history of a woman alleging rape be used in court and there would now be recognition of the condition of the mental health of a woman standing trial for abortion or infanticide. Computer hacking, the Attorney-General said was another new offence included in the Crimes Decree.

The procurement of prostitution services will also be an offence under the Decree.

“As the laws stands now it is only the prostitute that gets charged but the person procuring those services does not and invariably as you know prostitution in Fiji is gender-biased, in the sense that the prostitutes are predominantly female. So the males get away while the females get locked up. This brings about gender equality in our criminal justice system,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

He said these were all part of modernizing Fiji’s criminal justice system.

“It is also recognition that we as a society have developed, that we as a society now recognize that there are other influences when you are dealing with these sorts of matters.”