Ethnic Accommodation in the Republic of Fiji Islands

Type Report
Title Ethnic Accommodation in the Republic of Fiji Islands
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 1999
Publisher School of Law, Waikato University
City Hamilton
Country/State New Zealand
URL http://lianz.waikato.ac.nz/PAPERS/baxter/Baxter1.pdf
Abstract
In 1997, the Republic of the Fiji Islands put in place a Constitution whose avowed object was to achieve a better accommodation among Fiji’s different ethnic communities. Its people proclaimed their intention of COMMITTING ourselves a new to living in harmony and unity, promoting social justice and the economic and social advancement of all communities, respecting their rights and interests and strengthening our institutions of government.3

Although there are major differences in the circumstances of the two countries, aspects of the constitution-making process and of the Constitution itself may be relevant to the goal of improving the accommodation among ethnic groups in New Zealand, particularly the recognition of the special place of Maori as the indigenous people. The purpose of this paper is to identify the potentially relevant approaches and themes.

2 The selection and depth of treatment of these approaches and themes reflects the author’s sense of their resonances for New Zealand. Others will have the task of drawing out their implications in a synthesis which takes account also of the
constitutional arrangements in other multi-ethnic countries. That, indeed, was the approach taken in Fiji itself in commissioning comparative constitutional studies from which ideas could be drawn about the form of new constitutional
arrangements.4

3 In writing the paper, the author draws on the personal knowledge she gained in acting as the senior of the two Legal Counsel assisting the Fiji Constitution Review Commission (FCRC), the Commission’s report5
, the 1997 Constitution6 and other relevant sources.

Related studies

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