It’s not about winning or losing: Jai Ram Reddy
Former National Federation Party Leader Jai Ram Reddy met with party candidates and supporters over lunch last week where he shed some light on politics.
Mr Reddy advised candidates and supporters that “politics was ultimately not about winning or losing but about the battles you fight and how you fight it.”
During his political career Mr Reddy was both leader of the opposition and Attorney-General and Justice Minister in the Bavadra Government overthrown in the first 1987 coup.
He went on to serve as the president of the Fiji Court of Appeal.
He held this post briefly in 2000, and again from 2002 to 2003. On January 31, 2003, the United Nations General Assembly elected him to be a member of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Lawyer Makareta Waqavonovo, whose candidacy with the party was withdrawn last month, said it was nice to meet Mr Reddy.
“His Lordship or Jai Ram, as he is fondly known to his close friends and political colleagues, has many different and esteemed profiles,” Ms Waqavonovono said.
“But he is best known to us now as one of the architects who gave us the 1997 Constitution, which was so carelessly cast aside in 2009 by these power hungry military men and their shadow advisors in Government Buildings.”
She said Mr Reddy was destined for greater things in life.
“I remember well how once he came up to Legal Aid, post 2000, to offer his pro bono legal services in the west, a service very few senior counsels easily volunteered for,” Ms Waqavonovono said.
“As Justice Reddy, in the latter court, he was an exceptional judge who showed great kindness and patience to unrepresented litigants including those serving life terms that Legal Aid was unable to represent.”
