Silesia Ikaniwai, a government archivist, has announced that the original copy of the historic legal document has disappeared.
The set of papers, on which the Pacific nation's first constitution was based, were presented to the Fiji government by the Prince of Wales on Oct 10 1970. These included the Fiji Independence Order, which marked the country's release from British rule.
But since 2005 their whereabouts have become a mystery.
Ms Ikaniwai told Fiji's FBC News that several government departments had been contacted during the long search. She said that several offices that could have held the documents had been checked, but to no avail.
The government has since accepted that the papers have been lost and contacted the British government, which provided a photocopy of Fiji's Independence Order.
The announcement that the historic papers have gone missing comes during a week of celebrations in Fiji to mark 40 years of independence from Britain.
The country's self-appointed leader, Frank Bainimarama, used the occasion to justify a slew of controversial political reforms.
Since taking power in a 2006 coup, Commodore Bainimarama has abrogated the country's constitution, sacked the judiciary, imposed sweeping new controls on the media and said he would not hold democratic elections until 2014.
His stance has caused strong concern in Australia and New Zealand, and damaged Fiji's relations with the regional powers.
sudo_reddit on March 8th, 2019 at 00:22 UTC »
Does Britain have a file cabinet somewhere just labeled "Declarations of Independence?"
Joetato on March 7th, 2019 at 23:11 UTC »
This reminds me of when I was in 5th grade and our teacher told us the original Declaration of Independence was lost. During recess, another kid told me if we can't find it by the weekend (it was thursday), we became a colony of England again and we'd all be put in jail for being traitors.
Dumbass ten year old me completely believed him and I started freaking the fuck out.
Chocolate_Boy on March 7th, 2019 at 22:05 UTC »
Work in govm’t. Not surprised.
The entire written history of the last office I worked out of was loaded into two white vans and relocated to a different city when some organizational restructuring occurred.
The organizational restructuring unoccurred shortly thereafter.
Nobody ever found out what happened to those two white vans.
Consequently, my first two years as a public employee were a living hell.