There is increasing skepticism regarding the decision to grant a Presidential pardon to Mahendralal Patel, also known as Mahendra Motibhai Patel, who has not served his sentence.
Patel faced charges of Abuse of Office in 2006 and was convicted in absentia on November 20, 2014, receiving a 12-month prison sentence. However, he did not serve time because the court had allowed him to travel abroad for medical treatment, and he failed to return.
Attempts to reach Attorney-General Graham Leung, who chairs the Mercy Commission, for clarification on the conditional pardon given to Patel have so far gone unanswered. A follow-up inquiry made recently also did not elicit a response by the time of publication.
Fiji Corrections Service (FCS) Commissioner Jalesi Nakarawa confirmed that Patel’s name was absent from the FCS list submitted to the Mercy Commission. The FCS’s release list did not include him last Thursday, but shortly afterward, the Fiji Government’s official Facebook page announced the names of those pardoned, which included Patel.
Nakarawa explained that while FCS processes applications lodged by convicted prisoners, Patel’s name was not on their list because he was not in their custody. He expressed uncertainty about how Patel’s petition reached the Mercy Commission.
According to a statement from the Mercy Commission, Patel had initially submitted a petition on April 4, 2023, which was dismissed. After receiving a reconsideration request from his attorneys on June 13, the Commission took into account Patel’s age, the duration of his absence from Fiji, and his contributions to the nation before recommending a conditional pardon, with the stipulation that he must not reoffend.
The President acted on this recommendation under Section 119(5) of the Constitution on September 18, 2024, with the Commission affirming that its decisions complied with constitutional requirements.