抄録
The constitution of the Republic of the Fiji Islands (1997), the third constitution of Fiji since its independence in 1970, introduced multi-party cabinet system. The section 99(5) of the constitution prescribes that "In establishing the Cabinet, the Prime Minister must invite all parties whose membership in the House of Representatives comprises at least 10% of the total membership of the House to be represented in the Cabinet in proportion to their numbers in the House." To achieve a national unity, the first step and only solution in Fiji's constitutional problems is to form a power-sharing government among all ethnic communities, and the constitution should arrange to encourage the emergence of multi-ethnic government. This is the intention of the Fiji Constitution Review Commission (FCRC) which made the draft of multi-party cabinet clause. In this essay, firstly, I'll take up Ratu Mara's 'government of national unity' and FCRC's 'multi-ethnic government' as the ideal precedents in Fiji's history and the constitution of South Africa as the institutional precedent to search the origin of multi-party cabinet system, and secondly, the four multi-ethnic parties formed in Fiji since 1999 to consider the actual function of the system.
