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Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama will invite individuals and organizations to join the Constituent Assembly to deliberate on the draft constitution over the next few weeks, the state-owned radio broadcaster Fiji Broadcasting Corporation reported Wednesday.
All the invitations would go out after Feb. 14 deadline for existing political parties to re-register, said the report adding those parties that registered under the Political Parties ( Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosures) Decree 2013 would be invited to the Constituent Assembly which would have its first sitting in February.
The Constituent Assembly has the duty to review and approve the draft constitution as required under the decree, which requires that the assembly be diverse, and in addition to political parties, be composed of members who represented faith-based organizations, trade unions, employers, the business community, government, rural and agricultural communities, the military, women, youth, people with disability, and pensioners.
In December, the government reassured that the public would have access to the draft constitution as well as the Constituent Assembly that would review the document and make amendments it believed were appropriate.
The Constituent Assembly would consist of the broadest possible cross-section of Fijian society, as set out in the decree, Bainimarama said, adding that to qualify as members of the Constituent Assembly, individuals and organizations need to demonstrate that they represented a significant constituency in the country, and they must also be guided by a commitment to the interests of the nation and the Fijian people as a whole.
The assembly would be guided by the Fiji Constituent Process ( Constitution Assembly and Adoption of Constitution) Decree 2012. The decree also outlined that the work of the Constituent Assembly was to be completed before the end of March.
