The draft People's Charter has been made public as wide public consultations also begin on what the people of Fiji think about the proposed Charter.

The document contains a number of goals for Fiji and aims at setting a foundation to take Fiji forward through a number of major reforms.

The draft Charter talks about the reform of the electoral system, including the abolishment of communal representation system as provided under the constitution and the Electoral Act, and replace this with the use of a common roll system for all future elections, establish and adopt an Open List Proportional Representation Electoral and Voting System, incorporate specific anti discrimination measures into Fiji's electoral laws to ensure no person is discriminated against by political parties, remove the mandatory power sharing arrangement as provided for under the current constitution, reduce the voting age from 21 to 18 years, maintain compulsory registration and abolish compulsory voting.

The draft Charter also proposes that the electoral system be removed from the constitution and enacted as law so that it may be amended and reformed from time to time according to the will of the people.

However, it proposes that the fundamental recommendations of non-ethnic voting, equal franchise and Proportional Representation be enshrined in the constitution.

This would require major constitutional and electoral changes.

The draft proposes that the courts to be empowered to penalize including orders of dissolution of political parties that engage in activities that breach important values of the constitution.

The draft Charter also includes the enactment of the Freedom of Information legislation and the establishment of a Media Tribunal.

It also proposes the realignment of the role of the RFMF to include human security and the ways suggested are to enhance the military-community development partnership by strengthening its developmental role.

The draft further proposes that Fiji adopts as the common name "Fijian" for all the citizens of Fiji with full recognition that the indigenous people are the “i-Taukei” and to also ensure teaching of the vernacular languages, “Vosa Vakaviti” and Hindi, and the comparative study of major religions.

The draft Charter has many other recommendations.

Stay with us for more information.

It has been confirmed that the Charter team is already on the road trying to get the views of as many people as possible.

There is a plan to have copies of the draft Charter to be printed for each household in Fiji and then signed feedbacks are expected from the people on whether they agree or oppose the contents of the draft Charter.