The House of Representatives was the lower chamber of

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

from 1970 to 2006. It was the more powerful of the two chambers; it alone had the power to initiate legislation (the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

, by contrast, could amend or veto most legislation, but could not initiate it). The House of Representatives also had much greater jurisdiction over financial bills; the Senate could not amend them, although it might veto them. Except in the case of amendments to the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

, over which a veto of the Senate was absolute, the House of Representatives might override a Senatorial veto by passing the same bill a second time, in the parliamentary session immediately following the one in which it was rejected by the Senate, after a minimum period of six months. Also, the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

and

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

were required to retain the confidence of a majority of the House of Representatives to remain in office. The House of Representatives was suspended by the 2006 military coup. The 2013 Constitution abolished it and replaced it with a single chamber Parliament.

History

The House of Representatives dated from 10 October 1970, when Fiji attained independence from the United Kingdom. Under a

grandfather clause A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...

in the 1970 Constitution, the old Legislative Council, which had functioned in various forms since 1904, was renamed the House of Representatives and continued in office until 1972, when the first post-independence

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative ...

were held. Membership of the House of Representatives was increased from 36 to 52 in 1972, and to 70 in 1992. By the time of its suspension and abolition it had 71 members, all of whom were elected for five-year terms to represent single-member constituencies.

Electoral system

* ''See main articles: Electoral system of Fiji, Voting system of Fiji'' The electoral system was changed a number of times after independence in an effort to meet the competing demands of Fiji's diverse ethnic communities. In elections from 1972 through 1987, Fiji was divided into '' communal'' and ''

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

'' constituencies. The former were elected by voters registered as members of specific ethnic groups (12 indigenous Fijians, 12

Indo-Fijians Indo-Fijians or Indian-Fijians (also known as Fiji Indians) are Fijian citizens of Indian descent, and include people who trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent.Girmit by Suresh Prasad Although Indo-Fijians constitu ...

, and 3

General electors "General Electors" is the term formerly used in Fiji to identify citizens of voting age who belonged, in most cases, to ethnic minorities. The 1997 Constitution defined General Electors as all Fiji citizens who were not registered as being of ...

– Caucasians, Chinese, and other minorities); the latter were allocated to specific ethnic groups (10 indigenous Fijians, 10 Indo-Fijians, and 5 General Electors), but elected by

universal suffrage Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stanc ...

. The system was a compromise between indigenous demands for a strictly communal franchise (based on fears of being swamped by an Indo-Fijian block-vote) and Indo-Fijian calls for universal suffrage, and was never widely popular. Ethnic Fijian nationalists blamed the national constituencies for the election of an Indo-Fijian dominated government in 1987, and following two military coups, they were abolished by the new republican Constitution of 1990. The elections of 1992 and 1994 saw all 70 members elected from communal constituencies; this system was widely resented by many Indo-Fijians, who complained that only 27 seats were allocated to them as opposed to 37 to ethnic Fijians, despite the near equality of their numbers at that time. A further 5 seats were allocated to minority groups. A constitutional review in 1997 introduced a new system, with 71 members. 25 were elected by universal suffrage from

Open constituencies {{Politics of Fiji Open constituencies represent one of several electoral models employed in the past in the Fijian electoral system. They derived their name from the fact that they were "open": unlike the communal constituencies, the 25 members ...

("open" meaning that the franchise was open to all locally resident Fijian citizens, irrespective of their ethnic background), with the remaining 46 elected from communal constituencies, with 23 seats reserved for ethnic Fijians, 19 for Indo-Fijians, 1 for

Rotuma Rotuma is a Fijian dependency, consisting of Rotuma Island and nearby islets. The island group is home to a large and unique Polynesian indigenous ethnic group which constitutes a recognisable minority within the population of Fiji, known as " ...

n Islanders, and 3 for "General Electors" – Europeans, Chinese, Banaban Islanders, and other minorities. Every Fijian citizen eligible to vote thus had two votes – one for an open electorate, and one for a communal electorate. The system remained controversial, however. The ''open constituencies'' differed from the former ''national constituencies'' in that while both comprised all registered voters on a common voters' roll, regardless of race, the open constituencies might be contested by members of any ethnic group whereas the national constituencies were ethnically allocated.

Organization

At its first session following a general election, the House of Representatives would elect a

Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...

and a

Deputy Speaker The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...

. With a view to ensuring impartiality, the Speaker was not allowed to be a member of the House, though he was required to qualify for membership. The Deputy Speaker, however, was elected from among members of the House.

Latest election

Speaker and Deputy Speaker

Open Electorates

Communal Electorates (Fijian)

Communal Electorates (Indo-Fijian)

Communal Electorate (Rotuman)

Communal Electorates (General Electors)

External links

Official Website of the Parliament of Fiji

House of Representatives
{{Fiji topics 1970 establishments in Fiji 2013 disestablishments in Fiji

Government of Fiji Fiji, House of Representatives Politics of Fiji Political organisations based in Fiji