The Fiji parliament's Justice, Law and Order committee has barred people making submissions on the government's Reconciliation and Unity Bill from making them public.
The committee chairman, Manasa Tugia, has told Radio Legend that once the written submissions have been made, they become the property of the committee and are not for public consumption.
Mr Tugia says for the present it would not be prudent to make submissions public while the consultation process is under way.
But people opposing the Bill say once their submissions have been made, it would be in the public interest to make them known for the sake of transparency.
The deadline for making written submissions was tomorrow but the committee has now extended it until the end of July.
