A former Fiji national and PhD candidate with the Waikato University was recently awarded a little over $NZ27,000 ($F42,415.54) by the New Zealand Human Rights Review Tribunal which ruled that the company which sacked him for refusing to work on his Sabbath contravened his human rights. Jalesi Nakarawa from Nakasaleka in Kadavu was awarded $NZ27,118 ($F42,600.91) in a ruling on February 24, for damages and income lost after he was sacked by meat processing company Affco New Zealand three years ago. I am happy with the ruling, which has been a long time coming. It has taken more than three years but it is a matter of principle for me. I could have easily walked away from it all but I decided to see it through to the end. The right to exercise ones faith is at the crux of the matter, Nakarawa said. The 57-year-old is a member of the Church of God and his religious beliefs state he should not work after sunset every Friday until Saturday evening. The tribunal ordered he be paid $12,118.00 for loss of wages and awarded another $15,000 for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to Nakarawas feelings. Nakarawa is a former career civil servant in Fiji where he had served as assistant secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs for five years and was the Assistant Commissioner of Prisons for more than two years before he migrated to New Zealand in 2001. I basically migrated because I wanted to give my children a better opportunity than what is available in Fiji, he said. There he continued with his studies and apart from his degree at the University of the South Pacific, Nakarawa has earned an LLB and an LLM from Waikato University where he is a PhD candidate. Nakarawa is studying the family court system in New Zealand and is putting together a paper where he hopes that it will lead to recognition of changes that needs to be made in the institution. Entitled, Deception and aggression: The family and the family court system — A compelling case for reform. Nakarawa says: In terms of the family court system, the focus of my research is on the roles of professionals and the notion that they are sometimes unable to see or blind to what they do because of an unquestioned acceptance of the value base within which they work, creating a belief in the correctness or validity or benefits of what they do. fijitimes/story.aspx?id=262099
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 21:34:31 +0000
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