Jai Ram Reddy
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Jai Ram Reddy (born 1937) is an Indo-Fijian statesman, who has had a distinguished career in both the legislative and judicial branches of the Fijian government. As leader of the National Federation Party (NFP), he was Leader of the Official Opposition from 1977 to 1983, and again from 1992 to 1999. He is currently the President of the Fiji Court of Appeal, a post he held briefly in 2000, and has again held since 2002. On 31 January 2003, the United Nations General Assembly elected him as a member of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is responsible for the prosecution of war crimes. In 1998, he received Fiji's highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Fiji, in recognition of his services to his country.
A lawyer by training, Reddy was admitted to the bar in New Zealand in 1960, and in Fiji the following year. From 1966 to 1970, he served as Crown Counsel and Principal Legal Officer in the Attorney-General's Office, and was the senior partner in a law firm from 1970 to 1977, when he entered politics and was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time.
Reddy replaced Sidiq Koya as leader of the NFP in September 1977, following major internal strife which had resulted in the party's missing out on forming the government despite its narrow victory in the election of March 1977, and its subsequent crushing defeat in a second election held to resolve the political stalemate in September. Under his leadership, the NFP made substantial gains in the election of 1982, but fell short of ousting the long time Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and was subsequently deposed as party leader in favour of Koya in 1983. Reddy briefly served as Attorney-General in the Bavadra government, in April and May 1987. Following the military coups of 1987, however, he again took over the leadership of the NFP, and continued to lead the party throughout the 1990s. In the elections of 1992 and 1994, the NFP won a majority of the 27 seats in the House of Representatives then reserved for Indo-Fijians.
In the late 1990s, Reddy decided to negotiate with the Prime Minister, General Sitiveni Rabuka, on amending the 1990 constitution, which was widely perceived as racist and was compared by many to South Africa's apartheid regime, as it guaranteed the political supremacy of ethnic Fijians. As a result of these negotiations, assisted by Sir Paul Reeves, a former Governor General of New Zealand, a new constitution emerged, which removed all discriminatory provisions against Indo-Fijians (except the mainly honorary office of President, which remained reserved for a Fijian hereditary Chief). This was considered Reddy's crowning achievement. His glory was short-lived, however. In the ensuing election of 1999, he entered into an electoral pact with his former enemy, Rabuka, an alliance which proved to be his undoing. Many Indo-Fijians had not forgiven Rabuka for carrying out the coups of 1987 and for his role in the subsequent adoption of the 1990 constitution, and the NFP lost all of its seats. Reddy's parliamentary career of some twenty years had come to an end.
In 2000, Reddy was appointed President of the Fiji Court of Appeal. He resigned in the wake of the overthrow of the constitutional government of Fiji in 2000, but was reappointed to the post in January 2002.