High Court judge Justice Deepthi Amaratunga will deliver his ruling on October 28 on whether the acting Permanent Secretary Communications was acting illegally when awarding exclusive print media advertising to Fiji Sun.

The hearing for the matter was held yesterday in a case which has been brought forward by Fiji Times Limited challenging the decision to award the contract to Fiji Sun.

Their lawyer, Jon Apted of Munro Leys, presented his argument for two hours detailing why he said a ruling ought to be made in their favour.

The case has taken a new twist after the Government Tender Board awarded Fiji Sun a tender for the fiscal year 2016-2017, which was awarded on September 22.

A heated discussion took place whether the awarding of the new tender makes the original application by Fiji Times Limited moot.

Fiji Times Limited had submitted that following an expression of interest, the Government Tender Board should have made a decision to award a tender for the previous fiscal year.

Now that the Board has awarded a new tender, bearing in mind Government’s change in fiscal year, lawyers for the Solicitor-General argued that the application does not hold.

Robyn-Ann Mani informed the court that a new affidavit was filed by them which showed that the Government Tender Board made a new decision which has been informed to Government departments and organisations.

Mr Apted is also seeking that Government clarifies in writing that statutory bodies are not bound to advertise in the Fiji Sun.

He argued that Fiji Times had been informed by statuary bodies that they received directive only to advertise in the Fiji Sun and that the wording in the public notice which was published following the awarding of tender was confusing.

Ms Mani argued that the court cannot rely only on Fiji Times Limited’s words and that if that was indeed the case, she questioned where the affidavits from the chief executive officers of the companies were, which stated that they assumed that they were only to advertise in the Fiji Sun.

She said Government does not need to clarify this issue, as when she had previously stated the same in the court, it was published prominently by the Fiji Times, adding that in the article in which her name was incorrectly spelt twice.

Mr Apted said in previous years Fiji Times Limited had revenue of around $800,000 annually from statutory bodies but in the first half of last year, they had earned only up to $15,000.

Justice  Amaratunga reasoned that there could be many other reasons for the decrease in revenue, including cheaper rates offered by the Fiji Sun, better attractive packages offered by the Fiji Sun, and also that the companies may have a different perception at the moment.

He said that he watches CNN but at one stage he switched to watching BCC news, but it did not mean he “hated” one organisation and it could be the same for companies.

He said even lawyers would opt for cheaper and better packages, so why would the companies be any different?

However, he took note of Mr Apted’s impassionate and prolonged argument on the matter.

Fiji Sun lawyer Emmanuel Narayan said Fiji Sun was the country’s leading newspaper and that would easily be another reason why statutory bodies chose to advertise in the newspaper.

With Mr Apted was Melvin Singh representing the Fiji Times Limited.

Representing Fiji Sun newspaper with Mr Narayan is Komal Singh. They are from the law firm Patel Sharma.

Representing the respondent- the Solicitor-General with Ms Mani is Seema Chand and Preetika Prasad.

Edited by Naisa Koroi

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