Fiji's Parliament is bicameral. The House of Representatives has 71 members. 25 of these are elected by universal suffrage. The remaining 46 are reserved for Fiji's ethnic communities and are elected from communal electoral rolls: 23 Fijians, 19 Indo-Fijians, 1 Rotuman, and 3 "General electors" (Europeans, Chinese, and other minorities). The upper chamber of the parliament, the Senate, has 32 members, formally appointed by the President on the nomination of the Great Council of Chiefs (14), the Prime Minister (9), the Leader of the Opposition (8), and the Rotuman Islands Council (1). The Senate is less powerful than the House of Representatives; the Senate may not initiate legislation, but it may reject or amend it.
The Senate's powers over financial bills are more restricted: it may veto them in their entirety, but may not amend them. The House of Representatives may override a Senatorial veto by passing the 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. Amendments to the Constitution are excepted: the veto of the Senate is absolute. Following the passage of a bill by the House of Representatives, the Senate has 21 days (7 days in the case of a bill classified as "urgent") to approve, amend, or reject it; if at the expiry of that period the Senate has done nothing about it, it is deemed to have passed the bill.
An anomaly that has arisen, as a result of the new parliament building having only one debating chamber, is that the Senate and House of Representatives use the same chamber at different times.
External links
Fiji Government Online Portal (http://www.fiji.gov.fj/) Official Website of the Parliament of Fiji (http://www.parliament.gov.fj/)
The Republic of the Fiji Islands, or Fiji, is an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Vanuatu, west of Tonga and south of Tuvalu.
Fiji's membership of the Commonwealth of Nations was suspended due to the anti-democratic activities connected with the 2000 coup.
The population of Fiji is divided between native Fijians, a people of mixed Polynesian and Melanesian ancestory (54.3%), and Indo-Fijians (38.1%), descendants of Indian contract labourers brought to the islands by the British in the 19th century.
In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and is now the dominant branch of Parliament.
Parliament of Australia The Parliament of Australia is the legislative branch of Australia.
The Parliament of Australia is modelled on the Parliament of the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, the Congress of the United States.
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