Public Health Bill should impose tiered penalties, says FNU

The Fiji National University (FNU) has recommended that fines under the Public Health Amendment Bill 2026 be differentiated, with larger corporations facing higher penalties for public health breaches than individual residents.

Professor Paul Jagals, representing FNU before the Standing Committee on Social Affairs yesterday, said a tiered penalty structure would create greater equity in the way fines are applied.

“Differentiated penalties is a very effective way to go if you want to not put the citizen and the business on the same level,” Professor Jagals said.

He also recommended that fines be prescribed through regulations rather than written directly into the Act, allowing them to be updated more regularly without requiring legislative amendments.

“The Act can make a provision that there should be fines, but that a regulation determines the fine from time to time – and that need not wait five years or 10 years, it can be annually,” he said.

Opposition Member of Parliament Viam Pillay raised the issue during the hearing, noting that under the current Bill, a major corporation and a private resident would face the same penalty for the same offence.

FNU also made several other recommendations to strengthen the legislation.

The university proposed that the amended Act include climate change resilience measures covering water supplies, food systems and health infrastructure.

It also called for terminology throughout the legislation to be standardised, noting that some sections still use outdated terms such as “sanitary inspector”.

FNU further recommended the establishment of a dedicated professional registration system for environmental health practitioners, similar to those in place for nurses and doctors.

The university said fines and the duties of health workers should be contained in regulations rather than the Act itself to allow for easier updates in the future.

It also argued that the legislation should better reflect the role of environmental health practitioners across multiple government ministries, not only the Ministry of Health.

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