EVERY single constitutional amendment must be put to eligible Fijians participating in the national referendum.
Speaking during the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2026 consultations in Ba yesterday, Ba lawyer Ashneel Sudhakar said the current yes or no voting process was insufficient and did not address specific amendments of the 2013 Constitution.
“My understanding is there will be a yes or no vote,” he said.
“But there are 100-plus amendments that are in this document from the previous constitution.
“I may agree with 10 of them and not agree with 90. There might be people who agree with 50.
“So by saying no, I am actually also discarding the 50 per cent of the document that I agreed to.”
He said while it would be a tedious task to include every amendment, Fijians must know what they were agreeing to or rejecting.
“It will be a tedious task but my understanding and suggestion is that every single amendment has to be put to the referendum.”
Mr Sudhakar also questioned the timing of the constitutional amendment process.
“One of the questions that now arises is, why do we need another constitution?
“Why is there a rush? We came into parliament four years ago.
“Had the process started earlier, maybe we would have a lot of time to do that, to review the constitution.”
He said if some considered the process of establishing the 2013 as rushed, a similar processing was happening with the current proposed 2026 Constitution.
“Now, aren’t we doing the same thing with the current 2026 draft? Aren’t we rushing it through?
“And we might end up with a similar document that will need to be reviewed after a few years.”
