The Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission has done what too many institutions have been afraid to do: it has told the truth about the 2013 Constitution’s treatment of iTaukei land rights. Those protections, the Commission declared, are “nothing more than an illusion.”
This is not hyperbole. It is a statement of constitutional fact.
When Ms. Alefina Vuki addressed the Constitutional Review Commission and exposed the fundamental contradiction between Section 28 and Section 27, she laid bare a deception that has been hiding in plain sight. Section 28 appears to prohibit the alienation of iTaukei land. Section 27 then hands the State sweeping powers to acquire that very land for “national development.” One hand gives. The other takes away. And the landowner is left holding a paper promise while the bulldozers arrive.
The safeguards we lost
Under the 1997 Constitution, laws affecting iTaukei land and affairs could not be altered without strict consensus mechanisms. The Bose Levu Vakaturaga had a role. Entrenched provisions required more than a simple majority. There was a recognition that iTaukei proprietary rights were not ordinary legislation to be amended at the whim of whatever government held power.
The 2013 Constitution stripped all of that away. Today, the iTaukei Lands Act 1905, the Native Land Trust Act 1940, the Fisheries Act, and every other instrument protecting iTaukei resources can be amended or repealed by a simple parliamentary majority. No consultation with traditional landowners is required. No consent must be sought. The BLV, once the guardian of iTaukei interests, has no constitutional role in the process.
This is not governance. This is expropriation by procedural convenience.
The international obligation we ignore
Fiji has signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It has committed to the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). These instruments require that indigenous peoples be consulted in good faith on matters affecting their lands, resources, and traditional livelihoods.
Yet our Constitution contains no such requirement. A parliamentary majority can authorise mining, logging, or land acquisition without a single iTaukei leader being asked for their view. The FHRADC is correct: this violates Fiji’s international obligations. But more than that, it violates the covenant our chiefs made in 1874—the promise that our lands would be protected, not pillaged.
The practical consequences
This is not an abstract legal debate. It has real consequences for real people.
When the Land Use Decree of 2010 created a land bank allowing government to lease iTaukei land for up to 99 years, no iTaukei governance body existed to scrutinise the terms. When the VKB was digitised by a foreign commercial team, no customary authority was consulted on the rules embedded in the system. When mining concessions are granted, the landowners are often the last to know and the least able to negotiate.
The removal of entrenched safeguards has created a system where landowners are poor in their own land—holding 87% of the country’s land area but representing 75% of Fiji’s poor. This is not coincidence. It is the predictable outcome of a constitutional framework that treats indigenous property rights as a suggestion rather than a guarantee.
What must be restored
The FHRADC has recommended re-inserting the 1997 Constitution’s entrenched safeguard clauses, adapted to Fiji’s current single-house parliament. This is the minimum requirement. But I would go further.
First, the Deed of Cession must be restored as the foundational document of our constitutional order. It is the only instrument that ever genuinely protected iTaukei proprietary rights, and its exclusion from the 2013 Constitution was an act of historical erasure.
Second, the BLV must be given a constitutional role in any legislation affecting iTaukei land, resources, or traditional affairs. Not a veto—I am not arguing against parliamentary sovereignty. But a requirement that the chiefs be consulted, their views recorded, and their consent sought before any parliament can alter the legal framework governing iTaukei existence.
Third, Section 27 must be amended to require Free, Prior, and Informed Consent from affected iTaukei communities before any compulsory acquisition of land for “national development.” The State’s developmental aspirations should not come at the expense of indigenous peoples’ rights. The two can be balanced, but only if the balance is written into the Constitution itself.
The argument against illusion
Some will argue that such provisions are undemocratic, that they privilege one community over others, that they entrench ethnic division. These arguments misunderstand what is being proposed.
The iTaukei are not seeking special privileges. We are seeking the fulfillment of a promise made in 1874, renewed in every constitution until 2013, and broken by a document drafted under military decree. Protecting indigenous land rights is not ethnic favouritism. It is the recognition that some rights are so fundamental that they should not be subject to the shifting tides of political majorities.
The FHRADC has done Fiji a service by naming this illusion. The question now is whether the CRC will have the courage to dispel it.
A covenant renewed
The Deed of Cession was a covenant of trust. Our chiefs trusted the Crown to protect iTaukei existence. That trust was broken. The 2013 Constitution was imposed, not negotiated. It reflected the priorities of those who drafted it, not the rights of those who live under it.
We now have a chance to write a new compact—one that restores entrenched safeguards, recognises customary law, gives the BLV its proper place, and ensures that iTaukei land rights are not an illusion but a constitutional reality.
The FHRADC has shown us the truth. The question is whether we will act on it.
Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian 