Lal warns of ‘self-coup’ over Constitution Bill

Centre for Democracy and Dialogue chief executive Nilesh Lal warned yesterday that if the President brings the new Constitution into force between December 24 and 31, Parliament would end, but Cabinet would remain in office without an election.

He described this as a “self-coup”.

Mr Lal told the Special Committee on the first public consultation on the Constitution Amendment Bill that the current Parliament “is going to expire in every possible scenario on December 24, 2026”.

The Bill provides for the new Constitution to come into force on March 31, 2028, but allows the President to set an earlier date.

Mr Lal said an election could not be held during that week because electoral boundaries would first have to be drawn. He said this would allow Cabinet to remain in power “undemocratically”.

He said this was contrary to a Fiji Labour Party press release issued on Wednesday.

Mr Lal said the Government’s draft was “much closer to the 2013 draft” than to the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) draft.

He said the CRC’s proposed 15-member Cabinet cap and two-term limit for the Prime Minister had been removed. Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has said he personally considers a two-term limit “a good provision”, but the Bill contains no such limit.

Mr Lal said the Prime Minister would appoint the chair and most members of the Boundaries Commission, with only two members appointed from the Opposition.

“There’s a very, very high risk of gerrymandering,” he said.

He said 18 of the 24 senators would be appointed on the advice of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga.

“Lawmaking is something that should be strictly confined to elected entities,” he said.

Lawyer Samuela Savu said power over the appointment of the Chief Justice “has never been so concentrated in the hands of one office”.