I talk about the government system of Fiji from executive to legislative and how elections work on the island nation.

1. Post author By Charlie August 20, 2020
The Government System of Fiji
theweeklyrambler.com/the-government-system-of-fiji/
Fiji is a nation made up of over 300
islands found in the South Pacific in
the Melanesia subregion of Oceania,
other nearby island nations and
overseas territories include New
Caledonia, Vanuatu, Wallis and
Futuna, the Samoas and Tonga
among others. The country’s capital
city Suva is found on the coast of the
nation’s largest island, Viti Levu.
Humans have lived on the islands
that are now Fiji since at least the
2 Millenium BC with the first
known peoples being the
Austronesians and then later
Melanesians with these peoples also
influenced by Polynesians. By the
19 Century a native ruler called Seru Epenisa Cakobau consolidated control of the
islands and created a short-lived independent monarchy, this same King later
voluntarily ceded the islands to the British Empire and it became a Crown Colony called
the Colony of Fiji in 1874.
From 1970 the colony was given independence within the Commonwealth Realm
meaning it conducted its own government affairs but the British Monarch was still the
ceremonial Head of State represented by an appointed Governor-General and Fiji
became the Dominion of Fiji. A series of coups then took place in Fiji in 1987
overthrowing a number of leaders until eventually a military government took power
and declared the islands a Republic meaning they were no longer apart of the
Commonwealth Realm and the British Monarch was no longer Head of State.
Another coup in 2006 put Frank Baninimarama as Prime Minister and saw the
continuation of military government until it was ruled unlawful in 2009 leading to the
President Ratu Josefa Iloilo who had been kept in power by the military, to abrogate the
1997 constitution and then later be succeeded by a new President the same year. It
wasn’t until years later in 2014 due to a number of delays and after the country adopted
a new constitution in the previous year where democratic elections were finally held
with Frank Baninimarama managing to win the election and remaining Prime Minister
so far to this day.
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2. The country’s official languages are Fijian, English and Fiji Hindi and
another recognised language is Rotuman which is an Austronesian language. The
largest religion is Christianity with the largest denomination being Methodist but there
is also a significant minority of Hindu’s. The country’s currency is the Fijian dollar and
the country’s population is closing in on 900,000.
Government Type
Fiji Coat of Arms. Simi Tukidia from Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0.Source.
The nation is a parliamentary representative democratic republic with a President who
is Head of State but mostly ceremonial with limited powers and a Prime Minister who is
Head of Government. There is also a unicameral parliament that runs the legislative
government. Multiple parties are allowed.
The Executive Government
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3. Government House in Suva, official residence of the President. Photo by Qiliho from
Wikimedia. CC BY 3.0. Source.
As mentioned, the President is Head of State, which is mostly a ceremonial role with
limited powers. The President though does have some powers, most of which are only
actionable on advice of the Prime Minister or designated Minister or member of
Cabinet.
Presidential Absence or Vacancy
If the President becomes absent for any reason or if the seat of President becomes
vacant then the country’s Chief Justice will become the acting or interim President for
such period of time until either the President returns or a new President is appointed by
Parliament.
Duties
The President on advice of the Prime Minister can proclaim Parliament prorogued
which discontinues the session of parliament without actually fully dissolving the
parliament, it just prevents it from functioning for the time period, mostly the power is
simply just used to end a session of parliament early or before the parliament is
dissolved for election, but other times it can be used in an attempt to resolve stalemate.
On advice of the Prime Minister the President can also dissolve parliament early for
fresh elections, but this can only happen after a lapse of 3 years and 6 months since the
date of its first meeting after a general election. Parliament can also be dissolved early
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4. by consent of two-thirds of parliament, such a motion can be moved by government if it
lacks confidence in parliament or by the Leader of the Opposition or if parliament has
first rejection of motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister.
A motion to dissolve early cannot be moved 18 months immediately following the start
of the parliamentary term or 6 months before its end.
The President dissolves parliament if the motion is passed and summons parliament
after a general election. Sessions of Parliament are summoned by the President on
advice of the Prime Minister or by the petition of one-third of parliamentary members
related to an urgent public matter, outside of that normal sessions are determined by
parliaments own internal rules agreed upon by members.
The President shall also summon parliament if 2 months has elapsed since the previous
sitting. Finally, the President will open parliament annually with an address that
outlines policies and programmes of the Government.
There are ceremonial functions and responsibilities for the President as Commander-in-
Chief of the country’s armed forces.
The President helps to guarantor independence of the judiciary, including appointing
the Chief Justice who is the President of the Supreme Court on advice of the Prime
Minister who has consulted with the main Opposition Leader. Supreme Court Judges,
President of the Court of Appeal, justices of the Court of Appeal, and High Court judges
appointed by the President on recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission
after consultation with the competent cabinet Minister and parliamentary committee.
Members of the Judicial Service Commission are the Chief Justice as its chairperson;
the President of the Court of Appeal; the Permanent Secretary responsible for justice; a
legal practitioner appointed by the President after consultation with the Chief Justice
and Attorney-General; and a person who is not a legal practitioner appointed by the
President on advice of the Chief Justice following the Chief Justice’s consultation with
the Attorney-General.
Director of Public Prosecutions is appointed by the President on recommendation of the
Judicial Service Commission after consultation with the Attorney-General.
The President is also responsible for appointing a number of other independent
commissions and public offices such as but not limited to rights of citizens,
appointment of public offices, appointment and discipline or organization of authorities
and military positions/posts through various structured processes similar to the above.
Another I shall give clear presentation to is the Constitutional Offices Commission
which includes the Prime Minister as chairperson; the main Leader of the Opposition;
the Attorney-General; two people appointed by the President on advice of the Prime
Minister and another person appointed by the President on advice of the main
Opposition Leader.
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5. There are also various processes for removal of members from the above commissions
and public offices and from judicial positions that usually involve the President’s
intervention and the setting up of a tribunal or board to make the decisions.
Note that the above is true in many, many government systems I have done previously
just that I have often not gone this much into detail on it.
Removal from Office
The President can be removed from office due to inability to perform functions or down
to misbehavior. If the Prime Minister considers the question to remove the President
important then the Prime Minister will ask the Chief Justice to set up a tribunal or
board to that effect. If it is to do with misbehavior then the Chief Justice will be asked to
set up a tribunal to investigate that consists of a chairperson and two people who are
eligible to be a judge.
If it is down to inability to perform functions then the Prime Minister will ask the Chief
Justice to set up a medical board to investigate including a Chairperson and two people
qualified to be a health practitioner.
The Medical Board or tribunal is appointed through the Judicial Service Commision.
The President is also notified of such requests, from this point the President is barred
from performing functions up until a final decision is made in which either the President
is removed from office or if they are retained and therefore powers are restored.
The tribunal or medical board shall come up with a written report on its investigation
and its recommendation on whether the President should be removed from office, this
report is received by the Chief Justice who hands it to the Prime Minister who shall then
table it to Parliament who will vote on whether to remove the President or not.
Government, Prime Minister and Cabinet
The Prime Minister is Head of Government and chairperson of the Cabinet. The
Cabinet shall have as many Ministers as is determined by the Prime Minister. The
Government, Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively responsible to Parliament and
must keep their confidence to remain in power. The Prime Minister keeps the President
generally informed about issues relating to governance of Fiji.
The Prime Minister appoints and dismisses Ministers. The Prime Minister can assign
themselves or a Minister responsibility for a specified part of the business of
government, such as general direction or control over a branch or branches of the
public service or over a disciplined force and responsibility for implementation and
administration of each Act, a notice of this action will be published in the Gazette.
Ministers and the Prime Minister must be a member of parliament.
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6. The Prime Minister can appoint any Minister as Acting Prime Minister for a period or
periods when the Prime Minister is absent from Fiji or for any reason is unable to
perform duties, this again must be published in the Gazette. The same can also be done
for Minister positions with the Prime Minister appointing another Minister as an Acting
Minister for a Minister who is absent.
Ministers can be called before parliament or parliamentary committees to answer
questions on matters under their competence, they must attend such calls to parliament
or a parliamentary committee. It is also the duty of Cabinet members to provide regular
reports of their activities to parliament.
The Prime Minister also appoints the Attorney-General to Cabinet, who is the
Governments principal legal advisor, the person appointed must be a legal practitioner
in Fiji with no less than 15-years post-admission practice either in Fiji or abroad. They
also cannot have been found guilty of any wrongdoing as a legal practitioner either in
Fiji or abroad. The position can either be appointed from a member of parliament or
someone outside of parliament.
It is as always, the job of Cabinet to organize governing policy and enact legislation
passed by parliament through the relevant ministries that are under the competence of
said Ministers. Cabinet and the Prime Minister also conduct foreign affairs. Cabinet can
also draw up legislation and present it to parliament.
Motion of No-Confidence
A motion of no confidence can remove the Prime Minister collectively with the entire
Cabinet from power, it requires the support of a majority of parliament and must
propose a Prime Minister to succeed the previous if successful, the proposed person
automatically becomes Prime Minister. If it fails it cannot be introduced again for
another 6-months.
State of Emergency
Like many systems, the constitution provides for emergency provisions to deal with
serious and unprecedented crises that may involve the temporary suspension or
reduction of certain rights of citizens and certain processes to help more effectively
bring the crisis under control.
The Prime Minister, on recommendation from the Commissioner of Police and the
Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces can declare a state of emergency in
some or all of Fiji. Parliament must give consent for a State of Emergency which if they
do will be in effect for 1 month which then requires consent by parliament to extend for
one month at a time.
The Legislative Government
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7. The Government Buildings in Suva is the meeting place of the Fiji Parliament. The buildings
also include the country’s High Court, offices of the Prime Minister and also several
Government ministries. Photo by Matthias Süßen from Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. Source.
Duties
There is an elected unicameral parliament that makes up the legislative government and
of which its main job is to have legislation introduced to it and to debate on it, amend
and/or pass or reject such legislation, passed legislation goes on to the President of the
country to be signed into law.
Both members of parliament and government can introduce bills to the Parliament of
Fiji but only the minister responsible for finance or another minister designated by the
by the Cabinet may introduce money bills, money bills include any bill to do with taxes,
public funds, public money, loans, or the receipt, custody, audit, investment or issue of
money or deals with anything incidental to those matters.
The President has passed bills presented to them by the Speaker of the Parliament and
the President will have 7-days to give assent to the legislation, if the President takes no
action within the time period then the legislation will automatically go into law.
All international treaties and conventions must be consented to by the parliament
before having any effect.
Composition of Parliament and Rules
Parliament currently has a set 51 members but this can change based on population
ratio to parliament ratio (with the ratio calculated using the first sitting of parliament to
population ratio), this job is performed by the Electoral Commission, members of the
Electoral Commission are appointed by the President on advice of the Constitutional
Offices Commission, those who cannot be appointed are members of parliament,
parliamentary candidates, public office holders excluding Judges, or members of a local
authority.
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8. Supervisor of Elections is also appointed by the President on advice of the
Constitutional Offices Commission who have consulted with the Electoral Commision.
This office is directed by the Electoral Commision and its purpose is to administer
registration of voters and organise elections.
At the start of term members will elect a Speaker who is not a member of the parliament
and will then elect a Deputy Speaker who is a member of parliament but not a minister.
It is the job of the Speaker to conduct and execute parliamentary agenda, confer with
the executive as voice of the parliament, regulate an orderly parliamentary debate and
enforce parliamentary bylaws and standing orders.
A vote of two-thirds of parliament can remove the Speaker or Deputy Speaker.
A Secretary-General to parliament is appointed by the President on advice of the
Constitutional Offices Commission. The position is responsible to the Speaker and
advises the Speaker and members of parliament and can appoint, remove and
discipline all parliamentary staff.
Parliament must establish committees under its rules and orders for the purposes of
scrutinizing the government’s administration and to examine bills and such other
legislation and functions as are specified in the rules and orders of parliament.
Committees and also parliament have the power to summon people by the force of law
for evidence and providing of information.
Parliament members may make standing orders, which are rules that govern
parliaments internal functioning such as committees and how the powers, privileges
and immunities of parliament are upheld. Note that pretty much every parliament does
this in the world, just most the time I haven’t mentioned it, not each parliament refers
to it as “standing orders” though, which its origin is from the British parliament and as
such “standing orders” is used by many parliaments of nations that were once under
British rule or apart of the Commonwealth.
The Electoral System
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9. Photo by Golbez from Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0.Source.
The appointment of President happens every 3-years and is done via parliament. Both
the Prime Minister and main Opposition Leader can either nominate candidates of
their own or agree upon a single nomination, if the nomination is agreed upon then the
Speaker will declare the nominee President without a vote of parliament, if the
nominations a separate then a vote of parliament happens and the President is elected
by a simple majority, if both get the same number of votes then the voting will be held
again for up to 3 rounds, if on the 3rd round both nominees still get the same number of
votes then the Prime Minister’s chosen nominee wins and becomes President by
default.
The President can only be re-appointed for one more term before stepping aside.
Those eligible for nomination as President must have had a distinguished career in any
aspect of national or international life either in the public or private sector, must hold
only Fijian citizenship, must not be a member or hold any office in a political party, not
be a candidate for election to any other state office and not have been convicted of any
offense in the previous 6-years.
Parliamentary elections happen every 4-years and all members are elected from a single
nationwide multi-seat constituency using a proportional representation system where
parties or independent candidates who reach 5% or more of the vote are guaranteed
seats, seats achieved by parties are relative as close as possible to the total percentage of
votes they achieved.
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10. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President from the largest party/coalition while
the official Opposition Leader is elected by the members of Parliament after the
parliamentary elections.
If no party has more than 50% of seats then the parliament will nominate a Prime
Minister, if only one is nominated they shall be automatically become Prime Minister
appointed by the President, if though more than one nominee is chosen then
parliament must elect one by absolute majority vote, if within three rounds a nominee
still has not elected a Prime Minister then fresh elections are called by the President, if a
nominee does get an absolute majority they are appointed Prime Minister by the
President.
The same process will take place above if the Prime Minister position becomes vacant.
To be candidate for parliament one must be a citizen of Fiji and not be holding any
other citizenship, be a registered voter, be a resident in Fiji for at least 2-years before
nomination, does not have an undischarged bankruptcy, to not be a member of the
Electoral Commission and to not have been a member on it for 4-years leading up to
being nominated, not subject to a sentence of imprisonment, for the previous 8-years to
not have been convicted of an offense that has given at least 12-months or more prison
sentence, and not found guilty of any electoral offense.
Candidates must leave any public office they may be holding.
To vote one must be a Fijian citizen and be at least 18-years-old. Those serving a
sentence in prison longer than 12 months imposed by the nation or by another country,
those declared of unsound mind or those disqualified for committing electoral offenses
may not be able to vote.
Sources
The Sources for this post come from Fiji’s Constitution of 2013 (Constituteproject.org)
and of which should be as accurate as possible but of course there is always the chance I
have misinterpreted something or missed out something important and of course the
constitution can be amended and so eventually this post may become outdated and as
such it is recommended for those using this seriously to also do cross-research.
A bill to amend the constitution is introduced to parliament and is read three times, on
the second and third readings it requires the support of at least three-quarters of
parliaments members, if passed by parliament then a referendum will be organised to
adopt the amendment and requires the support of at least three-quarters of registered
voters and then after that the President gives assent to the amendment.
Next up will be the government system of Finland!
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