THE inclusion of women holding chiefly title into the Great Council of Chiefs is not decided by the Bose Levu Vakaturaga.
Responding to recommendations made by the Constitution Review Commission on the BLV in its report for a proposed new Constitution, GCC chairman Ratu Viliame Seruvakula said this decision was made by each traditional household.
“The GCC welcomes the recommendation made by the commission however the GCC reiterates time and again that women of chiefly title are nominated from Bose Vanua of each province which is then recommended to the GCC,” he said.
“The GCC cannot interfere with that traditional process as that is hereditary and decided by a number of votes.
“That process is not of democracy or voting rights, it is of traditional rituals and practices.”
Ratu Viliame also welcomed the CRC’s suggestion that the GCC be recognised once again by Fiji’s supreme law.
“The GCC was and has always been recognised in the Constitution until the most recent years under the previous administrations where they illegally removed the GCC.
“People fail to remember that.
“The GCC did not choose to walk out of Fiji’s Constitution but was removed. What the GCC is doing now, is just requesting to be returned its rightful recognition that was stripped off them.
“As for respecting the rights and constitutional protections of all citizens, we have always been complying and encouraging our people to do the same.”
