The Fiji Labour Party calls for the immediate public release of the full Constitution Review Commission report as the constitution belongs to the people.
FLP Leader, Mahendra Chaudhry says the report and the Draft Constitution Bill must be debated in the open, or it has no legitimacy.
Chaudhry says provisions now circulating in the media from the draft prepared by the Constitution Review Commission go to the heart of equal citizenship.
He says they raise important questions about how the President would be chosen, the place of the Great Council of Chiefs in the constitutional order, and whether the secular character of the State would be weakened.
Chaudhry says Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka tells the public to remain calm because Cabinet has not yet adopted the recommendations.
He says that is not an answer to the people’s anxiety.
Chaudhry says when such material appears in the mainstream media and the Government does not publish the full report and draft for every citizen to read, it creates unnecessary tensions and apprehensions, particularly in a plural society.
The FLP Leader says this Government came to office promising openness and the restoration of media freedom, yet the media were kept out of State House when the Commission presented its findings and draft to the President.
Chaudhry stresses a constitution written for the people cannot be delivered in secret - and a process that excludes the press at the moment of handover is not democratic.
The FLP Leader says the 2013 Constitution is not beyond criticism but it contains a clear framework of equal citizenship and rights that protect every community.
Chaudhry says any review that appears to dilute those protections, or to place the highest office of the State in the hands of a small appointed committee, will be judged first by those who have the most to lose if they become second-class citizens in their own country.
When asked by fijivillage News on why the report is yet to be released to the people of the country, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says it must be released officially by the President to cabinet to start work on it.
Stay with us for developments.
