State Counsel Bret Walker has warned the Supreme Court against assuming a role it does not possess, that of steering Fiji back to the 1997 Constitution.
He said in his closing submission this afternoon, that doing so would exceed the court’s jurisdiction and undermine parliamentary sovereignty.
“This Court building a bridge back to 1997, to the legality of 1997, ought to be rejected,” he said.
He added such a move would effectively turn the Court into the “steward of constitutional remaking”, a role he stressed the Court is neither empowered nor permitted to take on.
“That would involve this Court becoming, as it were, the steward of constitutional remaking by the nation in a way that the jurisdiction simply does not permit and certainly could not be ordered by this Court.”