There is increasing doubt regarding the decision to grant Mahendralal Patel, also known as Mahendra Motibhai Patel, a Presidential pardon without serving his sentence.
Patel was convicted of Abuse of Office in 2006 and received a 12-month prison term in absentia on November 20, 2014. He did not serve this sentence due to being granted leave for medical treatment abroad, from which he did not return.
Attempts to reach Attorney-General Graham Leung, who chairs the Mercy Commission, for clarification on Patel’s conditional pardon have gone unanswered since Sunday. A follow-up inquiry yielded no response by the deadline for this article.
Fiji Corrections Service (FCS) Commissioner Jalesi Nakarawa stated that Patel’s name was not included in the FCS list provided to the Mercy Commission. The FCS release list, issued last Thursday, also did not mention Patel. However, shortly after, the Fijian government’s Facebook page published the names of those pardoned, which included Patel.
Nakarawa explained, “FCS facilitates applications submitted by convicted prisoners. They submit their petitions, and we process them and then send them to the Mercy Commission. For Patel, we were unaware of any application because his name was not on our list as he was not in our custody. Therefore, I cannot explain how his petition reached the Mercy Commission; I only deal with cases of convicted prisoners in our care.”
According to a statement from the Mercy Commission, Patel submitted a petition on April 4, 2023, which was initially dismissed. On June 13, his lawyers sent a letter requesting reconsideration of the petition, which led the Commission to deliberate based on Patel’s age, the length of his absence from Fiji, and his contributions to the nation.
Consequently, the Commission recommended a conditional pardon for Patel, dependent on him not reoffending. The President acted on the Commission’s recommendations under Section 119(5) of the Constitution on September 18, 2024. The Commission confirmed that its decisions were made in accordance with the Constitution.