 The Court found that President Ratu Josefa Iloilo had acted lawfully when he had appointed Bainimarama as prime minister.Following the ruling, Fiji’s interim attorney-general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, called upon Australia, New Zealand, the European Union and the United States to lift the sanctions they had imposed on the country, stating that they could no longer refuse to recognise the interim government.On 9 April 2009, the Fiji Court of Appeal ruled that the coup had not been legal and that the "only appropriate course of action at the present time is for elections to be held to enable Fiji to get a fresh start."