Update: 12:05PM AUSTRALIA has no plans to introduce wider sanctions against Fiji, says its foreign minister Stephen Smith.
He was responding to pleas from the Sydney-based Fiji Democracy and Freedom Movement which was formed last Saturday.
The group, whose president-elect is Usaia Waqatairewa, the former deputy director of the Fiji Human Rights Commission, called for stronger action like bans on Air Pacific flights to Australia and sporting sanctions.
Mr Smith said such actions would hurt the general Fijian community.
"We are not proposing to introduce sanctions which have the impact of adversely impacting on the Fijian people themselves," he said.
"...that is not our objective," Mr Smith said.
The Movement has written to Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to register its deep concerns.
Meanwhile, the Fiji Human Rights Commission remains invalidated.
Shaista Shameem, who was Commission chairman and Ombudsman prior to the Constitution's abrogation, has not answered queries addressed to her on the constitutional body's fate.
While she registered her disappointment over recent developments, she said the President had no choice but to abrogate the Constitution after the Fiji Court of Appeal ruling left a vacuum in government.
"Under the Human Rights Commission Act, the commission is a quasi-judicial body, and given the judiciary of Fiji is no longer in place, the commission pronounces that the Bill of Rights chapter in the Constitution remains the prime protector of human rights of all the people of Fiji," she added last week.
A quasi-judicial body means one that has powers resembling those of a court of law and is able to remedy a situation or impose legal penalties on a person or organisation.
