Professor Yash Ghai is a well known constitutional expert and will now lead the commission that drafts Fiji’s new constitution.
Over the past 30 years the constitutional law expert has moved around the world’s political hotspots, listening, talking and helping where he can.
They call him the constitutional “fix it man”.
A Kenyan by birth, of Indian ethnicity, he rose to the top of his complicated specialty at a relatively young age, prodded by the constitutional problems surrounding the country of his birth.
His early aversion to colonial rule and interest in race relations was examined in his 1971 book Asians in East Africa; portrait of a minority.
Since then he has travelled the world advising nations, including Fiji, Samoa, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, troubled by ethnic and other conflicts.
Meanwhile former Deputy Prime Minister in the SVT led government, Taufa Vakatale who is also a member of the commission said she was approached to take up this position and she believes it will be a challenging task.
Story by: Vijay Narayan
