Seeking a lasting constitutional settlement

When The Courier visited Fiji in July, the report of the Constitutional Review Commission headed by Sir Paul Reeves (former Governor-General of New Zealand) had not yet been completed - and what it would contain was a major topic of speculation. As readers will see from the interview we publish with the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, the impartiality of the three-member Commission was not in question - at least within the political mainstream on both the native Fijian and Indian sides. Nonetheless, there were doubts about whether a consensus could be found. For the Indo-Fijians, a scaling down of the 'racial' features in the Constitution was seen as a prerequisite. Yet the ruling SVT, in its own submissions to the Commission, had effectively supported the status quo. In view of this apparently unbridgeable gulf, could the compilers of the Report come up with recommendations capable of forming the basis for a lasting constitutional settlement ?

The long-awaited Report was formally transmitted to President Ratu Mara on 6 September and a few days later, it was tabled to a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It now falls to a joint select committee of the two Houses to thrash out a new set of constitutional proposals. These will be presented to Parliament for debate and decision in the first half of next year with a view to meeting the July 1997 deadline foreseen in the 1990 Constitution.

The Report of the Review Commission is lengthy (almost 800 pages) and contains no fewer than 697 separate recommendations. The key ones, however, relate to the system for electing members of the House of Representatives. Currently, separate electoral lists based on race are used to fill all 70 seats (37 native Fijians, 27 Indo-Fijians, 1 Rotuman and 5 'General Electors', covering all other races). It was widely expected that the Commission would propose a mixture of 'reserve' seats and 'open' ones, with the latter, as their name implies, being chosen by the whole electorate.

45 'open' seats proposed

This is precisely what they have done - but the suggested breakdown may have come as a surprise to some. The proposal is for 45 open seats (15 three-member constituencies) and 25 single-member 'reserve seats (12 native Fijian, 10 Indo-Fijian, 1 Rotuman and 2 'General Electors'). If adopted, the new system would no longer legally guarantee a majority for people of Fijian origin in the country's legislature. What would happen in practice would depend on a number of factors including the nature of the voting system in the three member open constituencies, the willingness of people to cast their ballots across the ethnic divide and the actual turnout of voters from the different communities. It should be pointed out, however, that native Fijians now constitute half the population, large numbers of Indians having emigrated over the past nine years. So long as communal voting patterns persist, this will presumably be reflected in the Parliamentary arithmetic.

It is also proposed that the bulk of the 35-member Senate (Bose e Cake) should be made up of elected representatives of Fiji's provinces. In the field of local government, it is suggested that the present system based on villages and provinces, which applies only to native Fijians, might be replaced by an arrangement applicable to all races. In this context, the rote of the Council of Chiefs (Bose Levu Vakaturaga) would be reduced.

Although the sections of the Report relating to representation are bound to attract most attention, the Commission also put forward a series of other proposals aimed at improving the governance of Fiji. One idea, which appears designed to alter the political culture, is for the 'Official Secrets Act' to be replaced by a 'Freedom of Information Act'. The presumption of secrecy would be replaced by a rule that official information should be accessible to the public except where there is good reason to withhold it. In a similar vein, the Report recommends an 'integrity code' to govern the behaviour of holders of public office.

Initial reactions to the outcome of the Commission's work were mixed. Key players, including the President, Prime Minister and opposition spokespersons broadly welcomed the Report but more nationalistic elements were quick to reject it and one group even mounted a ceremonial burning of the document.

It is obvious that a great many more words will be exchanged - and some of them will no doubt be heated - in the coming months. It is difficult to see how everyone can be 'brought on board' but the hope must be that a compromise can be crafted that is acceptable to the majority on both sides of the communal divide. The people of this Pacific island nation are well aware that prosperity and stability go hand in hand. The single most important achievement in ensuring stability for the longer term would be to secure a satisfactory settlement of the constitutional issue.