THE Electoral Law Reform Commission will consider removing laws that criminalise election monitoring.
Commissioner Prof Wadan Narsey said the commission would look into allowing civil society organisations to oversee the electoral process.
“Yes, we’re going to allow civil society organisations the freedom to monitor everything,” he said.
“Can you imagine laws that tell our civil society organisations, ‘oh no, you can’t watch the counting, oh no, you can’t watch the voting’?
“We made it a crime for society to monitor their own election. Hopefully, we’re gonna get rid of all of that.”
Concerns about restrictions on voter education materials will also be addressed.
“We allow people out there to be able to take a card and say, ‘oh, look, this is how my family has advised me to vote,’ and then that’s not a crime. That’s not a crime.
“Whereas, under the current system, it’s called a crime if you take a vote education card – it’s a crime if you take a voter education card into the booth.”
“I think everybody in Parliament, even people who belong to the Fiji First party and so on, would be supportive, because they have seen some of the bad effects.”
“More importantly, I think the people will support it,” commission chairman Justice Daniel Fatiaki said.
