Constitution of Fiji

Fiji's current constitution took effect in 2013, the fourth since independence, following the 1970 constitution adopted at independence from Britain, which allocated parliamentary seats by ethnicity (22 each for Fijian and Indian voters and 8 for others), the 1990 Constitution of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji adopted after the 1987 military coups, and the 1997 Constitution of the Republic of the Fiji Islands, a more inclusive document that became only the second national constitution, after South Africa's 1996 constitution, to explicitly protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The 2013 constitution removed the ethnicity-based electoral provisions of its predecessors, giving Indo-Fijians equal status with indigenous Fijians under the law.