The emergency laws that was placed on Fiji citizens since 2009 will be lifted this week.
This was the announcement made by Fiji’s military ruler Commodore Frank Bainimarama on Monday the 2nd of the new year 2012.
In a New Year speech, Bainimarama also said consultations would start in February on a new constitution to replace one annulled in 2009, at the height of a political crisis over his rule.
The emergency regulations imposed media censorship, required official approval for public meetings and gave the police and military additional powers.
Bainimarama said the public emergency regulations will cease from 7 January, 2012.
Fiji’s neighbours, including Australia, have long called on Bainimarama to step down and restore democracy.
The Pacific island nation was suspended from the Commonwealth in 2009 over Bainimarama’s failure to call elections.
Bainimarama has been in power since a bloodless coup in 2006.
Speaking on Fiji Radio on January 1 Bainimarama spoke on the need to maintain public order.
“We must all remember the public order protecting the vulnerable and safe guarding the economy, will always be paramount. We must also, as a nation, be intolerant of those that seek refuge and political power in religious and ethnic and communal divisions,” he said.
Bainimarama also said he will, in the next few weeks, announce the nationwide consultation process which will commence in February 2012.
In 2009, a court ruled Bainimarama’s coup illegal, but then president Ratu Josefa Iloilo responded by annulling the 1997 constitution, and reappointed Bainimarama as prime minister the next day, along with his government.
The emergency regulations were introduced at that time.
Fiji has suffered four coups and a bloody military mutiny since 1987, mainly as a result of tension between the majority indigenous Fijian population and an economically powerful, ethnic Indian minority
