Anthony Gates

Anthony Harold Cumberland Thomas Gates is a British-born jurist educated at Cambridge University who qualified as a barrister at the Inner Temple in London. He volunteered as a teacher in Sierra Leone with Voluntary Service Overseas and taught English at Royal College Colombo in Sri Lanka before joining Fiji's Director of Public Prosecutions office in 1977, becoming Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions in 1981. He served as a magistrate in Fiji in 1985 but was dismissed the same year for refusing to swear an oath to a coup leader, later serving as Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions in Brisbane and in private practice with Sidiq Koya. He was appointed to the High Court of Fiji in 1999, served as Acting Chief Justice of Fiji from 3 January 2007 to 18 December 2008, and as Chief Justice of Fiji from 18 December 2008 to 7 April 2019. He is best known for the landmark Chandrika Prasad v. Attorney-General of Fiji decision holding that the Constitution continued to be the law of the land despite the 2000 military intervention.