By: Rose Amos : NBC News The Member for Rabaul Dr Allen Marat is concerned proposed legislative changes on the general election will infringed on people's constitutional rights to stand for election. Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill and his Government are pushing changes in the law to increase election nomination fees from 1-thousand to 10-thousand Kina, and reduce the campaign period from 8 to only four weeks. But, Dr. Marat says, most candidates can not afford such a huge fee. "Section 55 (of the Constitution) provides or guarantees all citizens the same rights, privileges, obligations and duties irrespective of race, tribe, place of origin, political opinion, colour, creed, religion or sex. "The Supreme Court has ruled that earlier proposed rise in election fee for election to Parliament were unConstitutional. "In 1981 the Supreme Court declared the rise from K100 to K1000 unConstitutional. "This is because it would have denied the majority of eligible citizens the reasonable opportunity to stand for election, given them by Section 50 of the Constitution." But Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has defended the Government's move, saying elections are becoming expensive over time, and tax payers must be relieved paying for this national exercise. The Government as allocated K400m to conduct the 2017 National Elections. He says because of the ever increasing costs of running elections in the country, candidates who want to contest must sacrifice something, and one of these should be the cost of help to fund it. Mr. O'Neill says the money from the election nomination fees will go back to the Electoral Commission, to help it conduct the exercise. Mr. O'Neill says the 1981 Supreme Court decision was also overturned in an subsequent decision allowing the increase. The proposal is before the Electoral Commission for its assessment and feedback, before the Government makes further legislative changes, including Parliament's vote to alter the Organic Law to implement the changes. Next news >> Barker : Government's demand on SOEs unreasonable
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