Joni Madraiwiwi

Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Lord Madraiwiwi Tangatatonga (10 November 1957 – 29 September 2016) was a prominent Fijian lawyer, legal scholar, jurist, and politician.

He served as vice-president, and also acting president, of Fiji, and Chief Justice of Nauru.

His LL.M. thesis on air and space law was titled The archipelagic regime under the United Nations convention of the Law of the Sea 1982 : its development and effect on air law He also pursued and obtained a Diploma in Air and Space Law (DipA&SL) from the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University a year earlier in 1988.

From McGill, Madraiwiwi came back to Fiji and worked for the Office of the Attorney-General of Fiji as solicitor, serving from 1983 to 1991.

For his Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree which he obtained in 1989 at the McGill University Faculty of Law, he chose to specialize in comparative law.

Installed as the Roko Tui Bau on 11 November 1995, Ratu Madraiwiwi is one of the highest chiefs of the Kubuna Confederacy.

The Constitution of Fiji assigns a purely ceremonial role to the vice-president, apart from the power to exercise the functions of the Presidency should the President be unable to perform his duties.

With the 84-year-old President Iloilo suffering from ill health, the appointment to the Vice-Presidency of a respected individual who could assume the Presidency in the event of an emergency was regarded as a priority.

He was then appointed a permanent arbitrator in that office until 1997, when he became a judge of the High Court, which stands at the apex of the Fijian judiciary.

He resigned from the bench in mid-2000 in protest against the coup d'état that saw the elected government toppled, the constitution abrogated, and the judiciary reorganised by decree.

Thereafter, he practised law privately as a partner of Howards.

In addition, he served as director of Fiji Times Limited (the nation's leading newspaper) and trustee of the Fijian Trust Fund.

He was also a human rights commissioner and former chairman of the Citizens Constitutional Forum, a pro-democracy and human rights organisation.

He served as vice-president beginning 14 December 2004 to complete the unexpired term of his predecessor, Ratu Jope Seniloli, who had resigned in disgrace on 29 November 2004 in the wake of his convictions for treason concerning his role in the Fiji coup of 2000.

Madraiwiwi's first priority was to restore dignity and respect to the vice-presidency.

In 2004, he was installed as Vice-President of Fiji.

Rewa high chief Ro Jone Mataitini said the chiefs unanimously supported Ratu Madraiwiwi Vice-Presidential appointment because of his extensive knowledge of the law and because of his great rapport with other racial and religious groups.

In this regard, he was regarded as a compromise between those who insisted on reserving the Vice-Presidency for a high chief, and those (including Ratu Epeli Ganilau, the former Chairman of the Great Council of Chiefs), who believed it was time for a non-Fijian, to be appointed to the post as a gesture of goodwill to the Indo-Fijian and other minorities.

Fiji Labour Party leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry also welcomed Ratu Madraiwiwi's appointment.

"Ratu Joni is an eminent scholar who served Fiji with distinction in the last 20 years holding high offices. He is fully conversant with the affairs of the State and he will certainly restore dignity and decorum to the high office," Chaudhry said.

Tribal and regional factors played a part in the appointment.

Fiji's tribes each belong to one of three confederacies – Kubuna, Burebasaga, and Tovata.

One member of the Great Council of Chiefs explained to the media that they had understood that as President Iloilo is from Burebasaga and his predecessor, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara was from Tovata, the current vice-president should be from Kubuna.

Ratu Madraiwiwi was ceremonially sworn in as vice-president on 10 January 2005, following his nomination by President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, and his subsequent approval by the Great Council of Chiefs on 14 December 2004.

Madraiwiwi, in fact, was acting President of Fiji in the absence of Iloilo in 2005 and 2006.

However, on 5 December 2006, Madraiwiwi was informed of pending abolition of the vice-presidency, to take effect officially on 15 January 2007, by the Military Commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who had seized power in a military coup.

He was forcibly evicted from his official residence and his office on the night of 6 December.

Yet, Madraiwiwi announced in the second week of January 2007 that he was merely "on leave" as Vice-President of Fiji and intended in the meantime to resume private practice as an attorney at Howards law firm.

In 2008, when a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in the Solomon Islands, in the aftermath of ethnic conflict, it was to have five commissioners, including two foreign nationals.

Madraiwiwi was asked, and accepted, to serve as one of the two foreign commissioners.

The Commission noted that he brought "strong international human rights experience to the TRC".

In 2010, Madraiwiwi was presented with a Tongan life peerage and the title of Lord Madraiwiwi Tangatatonga by King George Tupou V of Tonga.

In January 2010, King George Tupou V elevated him to the Life Peerage in the Kingdom of Tonga, with the title of Lord Madraiwiwi Tangatatonga.

Ratu Joni became the Chief Justice of Nauru following the resignation of former Chief Justice, Geoffrey Eames QC.

He died in service as Supreme Court Chief Justice of Nauru.

Owing to his Fijian and Nauruan nationalities, he was nominated as early as 2013, and subsequently appointed in 2014, to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Nauru as its Chief Justice, the highest position in that country's judicial system, which he held until his death on 29 September 2016.

A lifelong legal scholar, Madraiwiwi was a prolific writer and public speaker who authored several articles and books, including A Personal Perspective, his last book.

Descended from a long line of Fijian royal hereditary rulers, Ratu Madraiwiwi was the eldest son of Bau chief Ratu Jione Atonio Rabici Doviverata and Fijian Member of Parliament Adi Losalini Raravuya Uluiviti, and was the namesake of his paternal grandfather, Joni Madraiwiwi I, a Fijian Ratu and early colonial administrator in what was then the British Crown Colony of Fiji.

He was born in Levuka, on the island of Ovalau, and subsequently titled Turaga na Roko Tui Bau, a vassal chief to the Vunivalu of Bau, Paramount Chief of the Kubuna Confederacy.

He obtained a Law degree from the University of Adelaide in Australia, and then left for Montreal, Canada for graduate study in Law at McGill University.