Criminal
Crimes Act 2009 and Criminal Procedure Act 2009, no death penalty
The Penal Code was replaced by the Crimes Act 2009, modernising offence definitions, alongside the Criminal Procedure Act 2009. The death penalty has been fully abolished.
Key rules
- Deadline — A person arrested must be brought before a court within 48 hours
- Deadline — Appeal to the Court of Appeal is normally within 30 days of sentence
Governing law
- Crimes Act 2009 (s. 4)
- Criminal Procedure Act 2009
- Sentencing and Penalties Act 2009
- Bail Act 2002
In practice
The 2009 reforms codified fault elements in a way modelled partly on the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code, so intention, knowledge and recklessness are defined in the statute rather than left to case law. Serious matters are tried in the High Court, which sits with assessors rather than a jury — the judge is not bound by the assessors' opinion, which is an important structural difference from most common-law systems. There is a presumption in favour of bail under the Bail Act. Fiji abolished the death penalty for all crimes, including under military law, in 2015.