NEW CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION MEMBER GETS TO THE POINT

15/04/2012

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Picture
Professor Christina Murray
NEW
CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION
MEMBER
GETS TO THE POINT

The newly announced member of Fiji’s five-member constitutional commission says she believes there is work to do for people to be able to speak freely in the constitutional process.

Christina Murray is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at the University of Cape Town, and served on committees for South Africa and Kenya’s constitutions.  Professor Murray says she has experience in dealing with the issues that public consultation raises.

“Clearly to have proper public consultations, the public has to be able to speak freely. And from what I understand of Fijian politics at the moment, something is going to have to be done about that. Of the members of the commission, the only person I know is Professor Ghai, and I know that he will be insistent as chairperson that the process is open and that it gives people a real opportunity to contribute.” Professor Christina Murray.

The interim government says it will name the final commission member, another Fijian, shortly.  The regime abolished the constitution in 2009 after the appeal court ruled that the interim government was illegal.

Source:http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=67483
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SOUTH AFRICAN NAMED TO CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION

11/04/2012

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                       SOUTH AFRICAN
NAMED TO CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION

The Fijian regime today announced the name of the second international member of the five-member constitutional commission: human rights and constitutional expert Professor Christina Murray.

Professor Murray, originally from South Africa, is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at the University of Cape Town; however, she is currently on leave as the Jennings Randolf Senior Fellow at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington DC.She has taught and written on a number of areas of the law, including human rights law—particularly relating to gender equality, violence against women, and constitutional rights for women—international law, and constitutional law. She most recently served as a member of the Kenyan Committee of Experts appointed by the Kenyan Parliament to draft a new Constitution of Kenya—approved and promulgated in August 2010.

Between 1994 and 1996 Professor Murray served on a panel of seven experts advising the South African Constitutional Assembly in drafting South Africa's “final” Constitution. Since then she has advised a number of government departments in South Africa on the implementation of the new system of multi-level government and worked with South Africa's national Parliament and many of its nine provincial legislatures. In addition to Kenya, her most recent constitutional work outside South Africa has concerned Southern Sudan, Nepal, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

The Chairperson of the Constitutional Commission is world-renowned constitutional scholar Professor Yash Ghai, and two of the three distinguished Fijian members are Taufa Vakatale, the first female Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji, and Dr. Satendra Nandan, academic, writer and former Member of Parliament. The final Fijian member will be announced shortly.
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