(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji’s biggest daily newspaper, “The Fiji Times”, on 9 July 1998 called the country’s proposed Emergency Powers Act 1998 “too dangerous to pass” and questioned why it is needed. An editorial in the newspaper said: “The Emergency Powers bill must not be allowed to pass in its present form. It confers on the […]
(PINA/IFEX) – Fiji’s biggest daily newspaper, “The Fiji Times”, on 9 July
1998 called the country’s proposed Emergency Powers Act 1998 “too dangerous
to pass” and questioned why it is needed. An editorial in the newspaper
said: “The Emergency Powers bill must not be allowed to pass in its present
form. It confers on the Cabinet more power than is healthy for any group of
politicians.”
**Updates IFEX alert of 7 July 1998**
It said Cabinet would be empowered to advise the president to declare a
state of emergency bringing into play sweeping powers without the consent of
Parliament. “The possibility of public debate is positively excluded,” the
newspaper said. The president could confer powers to enter and search
premises without a warrant, to take over private property without warning,
ban public meetings, censor the media, and arrest and deport individuals.
“The Fiji Times” said the proposed legislation has all the hallmarks of a
knee-jerk reaction to the current chaos in the economically-important sugar
industry and problems with landowner villagers which threaten the main
hydro-power scheme. It added: “The reason given for this extraordinary bill
is that, under the new constitution which comes into effect on July 27, the
previous emergency powers in the 1990 constitution are repealed. But before
anybody can say good riddance we have this latest legislation before
Parliament. It is a thoroughly bad bill – too wide in scope, too extreme in
its powers, too open to abuse.”
Background Information
On 7 July, Fiji’s House of Representatives began a special sitting in which
the Government intends to put in place the Emergency Powers Act 1998
allowing the declaration of a state of emergency. It includes a section
enabling the introduction of regulations for “censorship and the control of
and suppression of publications, writings, maps, plans, photographs,
communications and means of communications.” The Government says that, under
the 1990 Constitution (introduced by an unelected interim government after
two 1987 military coups), the president has the power in certain
circumstances to declare a state of emergency and issue decrees which
displace various rights and freedoms. When the new Constitution comes into
effect that power will be repealed. The proposed legislation enables the
president to still declare a state of emergency, it says (see IFEX alert).
