Constitution Amendment Bill may be tabled in March

There is a possibility that the Constitution Amendment Bill could be tabled in Parliament in the March sitting as awareness sessions have concluded.

This has been confirmed by Permanent Secretary for the Office of the Prime Minister Dr Lesikimacuata Korovavala while responding to questions following a preliminary consultation session.

He says they have been creating awareness on the entire review process, to prepare a report for the advice for the Office of the Attorney General and the Prime Minister.

Dr Korovavala says that decision of Parliament is crucial and what happens in Parliament will determine what the next step will be.

He stresses that they have not begun consultations yet but it will come after Parliament has decided on it, after the Bill is tabled in Parliament.

He says they have a responsibility to report back to the Cabinet.

He says the awareness session started on Wednesday and since then they have spoken to religious leaders, academic institutions, NGOs and the business sectors.

When asked why the media was not invited during the other session, Dr Korovavala says he does not have an answer to that as inclusiveness is everything.

Meanwhile, Dialogue Fiji Executive Director, Nilesh Lal says the whole process of amending the 2013 Constitution is politically charged and there is a lot of distrust in the process.

While speaking during a preliminary consultation session, Lal says based on an assessment, the current government, is also an authoritarian regime in the way it has been operating.

He also says some narratives relating to constitutional reform, is political in nature, and some of them are also bereft of facts.

Lal says handpicked experts that have come to Fiji have also taken a lot of liberty with facts, for instance, labeling the Fijian Constitution as the most unamendable constitution in the world.

He further says one of the things that also makes people skeptical is that the government or the people that have been pushing for reforms, have not been transparent about the actual amendments that they want.

Lal is questioning how they arrived at the 66 percent instead of 75 percent requirement for vote threshold.

He also found it problematic and akin to blackmail that in the event that if they fail to amend the Constitution according to its provision, they are saying that this is conclusive proof that it is impossible to amend the Constitution, and then extra constitutional means are going to be pursued to then amend the Constitution.