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The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is disappointed with the comments made by Resident Magistrate Seini Puamau in the Freesoul sentencing hearing yesterday when it was reported by fijivillage that she stated that there is a history of miscommunication issues with the DPP’s office.
The DPP, Christopher Pryde says the Office of the DPP State Counsel are diligent in noting and attending all court matters when properly advised by the courts.
Pryde says it is unfortunate and regrettable that the resident magistrate chose to speak as she did without being in possession of all the facts.
The office says on 25th August, the ODPP State Counsel in carriage of this matter was informed via mobile phone from a Suva Magistrates’ Court registry clerk that the Freesoul matter would be called for sentence hearing via skype.
The Office of the DPP says the officer was also informed by the clerk that the Magistrates’ Court Registry would contact him again to confirm the date of the sentence hearing but this never happened.
It says there was no official notification of this matter to the ODPP Registry.
They also note that this matter was not listed in the weekly cause list for the Suva Magistrates’ Court.
The ODPP says their registry was only informed yesterday after 2pm that the Freesoul matter would be called for sentence hearing at 2.30pm in Magistrates’ Court 3.
The ODPP says it was not informed that there would not be any skype hearing.
