Former High Court of Australia justice Geoffrey Nettle has been sworn in as a judge of Fiji’s Supreme Court, marking the latest appointment of an experienced international jurist to the Pacific nation’s highest bench.
Mr Justice Nettle took the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Judicial Office before Fiji’s President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, at State House on Wednesday morning, formally joining the Supreme Court under constitutional requirements.
The ceremony was attended by Chief Justice Salesi Temo and Chief Registrar Tomasi Bainivalu.
Justice Nettle, who served on the High Court of Australia from 2015 to 2020, brings decades of judicial and legal experience to the role. Prior to his appointment to Australia’s apex court, he sat on the Victorian Court of Appeal for more than a decade and earlier served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria’s Trial Division.
A graduate of the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford, Justice Nettle was admitted to practise in Victoria in 1977 before being called to the Bar in 1982. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1992 and built a practice spanning commercial law, equity, taxation and public law, appearing in both state and federal courts.
His judicial career began with his appointment to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2002, followed by elevation to the Court of Appeal in 2004.
After retiring from the High Court, Justice Nettle continued in public service roles, including as Victoria’s Special Investigator between 2021 and 2023, leading inquiries into allegations involving former police officers. More recently, he served as chief consultant to the National Anti-Corruption Commission on its Robodebt investigation between late 2024 and early 2026.
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