Dialogue Fiji has raised fresh concerns about the transparency and inclusiveness of Fiji’s ongoing constitutional review, warning that the way public views are being gathered and handled threatens the credibility of the exercise. Executive Director Nilesh Lal said the government’s pledge that the Constitution will reflect “what the people want” cannot be verified without a clear, systematic mechanism for recording, publishing and analysing submissions.
“The people of Fiji are not a homogenous group,” Lal said. “Without a systematic process for recording, publishing, and analysing submissions, there is no objective way to determine what the people want, or how those views are considered and reflected in the constitution draft.” He criticised what he described as opaque consultation practices and a lack of publicly accessible records that would allow citizens to track how their input is used.
Dialogue Fiji also flagged concerns about accessibility and the geographic spread of consultations, saying many venues have been located in predominantly iTaukei communities. Lal warned that concentrating meetings in such areas risks limiting broader participation across Fiji’s diverse population and could skew the composition of voices informing the review. He urged organisers to broaden the locations and formats of consultations to ensure minority and urban constituencies are reached.
A central point of contention is the absence of a centralised platform or website where submissions can be tracked. Dialogue Fiji said the current approach leaves the public reliant on selective reporting and makes systematic analysis or independent verification impossible. “How can the people of Fiji keep track of what is being submitted?” Lal asked. He pointed to modern tools such as livestreaming and online publication as readily available means to increase openness.
Lal contrasted the present process with the 2012 constitutional exercise led by Yash Ghai, which he said produced more than 7,000 publicly accessible submissions and allowed public scrutiny of all contributions. “The Ghai Commission ensured that every submission could be scrutinised by the public,” he noted. “That level of accountability is entirely absent in the current process,” he added, arguing that such accountability was central to democratic legitimacy.
The current review has been framed by some as an attempt to address a perceived “democratic deficit” associated with the 2013 Constitution—critics have suggested the deficit relates more to the process of adoption than to the document’s content. Dialogue Fiji warned that unless the review’s structure is strengthened to ensure transparency and inclusivity, it risks repeating the same shortcomings it purports to fix. The organisation called on review organisers to implement systematic recording and publication of submissions, establish a centralised tracking platform, expand consultation venues, and make proceedings more accessible to enable genuine public scrutiny.