THE Constitution Commission team have so far received about 600 submissions after three weeks of consultations in the Western Division ended yesterday,
Commission member Professor Satendra Nandan said the team had received a wide range of submissions from people in the west and it would be a huge challenge for the team during the compilation process.
He said the team had a fair idea of what the people in the west wanted to be included in the new constitution.
"We have had very good submissions from Rakiraki, Ba, Tavua, Lautoka, Nadi,Sigatoka and as far as Yasawa and Keiyasi," said Prof Nandan.
"People have responded very well, we would have preferred more people if that would have been possible since it was school holidays.
"We want more from the businessmen on what is their social responsibility; we wanted university people — what do they think our universities can help and share since we have three universities and thousands of our kids would be voting in the next election.
"This is a great resource that we have, the human capital, Fiji has some of the most talented people in our universities and in the civil servants and we need their submissions as well," he said.
"We have many written submissions that we are going to look at and analyse. People are already working on them but from the verbal submissions that we have had face to face, we have been very pleased with some bold ideas, fruitful ideas, innovative ideas and very creative ways of looking at the problems and how we can embed these ideas in the new constitution.
"The challenge is we have to do a lot of thinking and reading and I am happy to say the commission is working very hard on these submissions," Prof Nandan said. Commission chairman Prof Yash Ghai said it was a new experience for him going to some of the villages and meeting people from different walks of life.