Legal provisions for mandatory referendums at national level
Papua New Guinea
PNG, independent from Australia since 1975, has aWestminster inheritance. The currency of the relevant laws at thatwebsite has been vouched for by the Principal Officer, Legal Policy &Governance Branch, Department of Justice and Attorney General, PNG.
The Constitution only provides for one type ofreferendum, and that is on the question of devolution or independence for theAutonomous Region of the island of Bougainville: Constitution PartXIV. Under section 338, that referendum is to be held with the timeperiod of 10-15 years from the last peace agreement, which was2000. As correctly reported on Wikipedia, that referendum ison track to occur by 2015.
It should be noted that this referendum, whilstenshrined in the national Constitution, will only poll‘Bougainvilleans’ (i.e. those attached to that region).
Other than this issue of sub-regionalindependence, there is no provision for referenda, mandatory or otherwise, at anational level in PNG. In particular, theConstitution sections 13-14 and 17 empower the National Parliament to amend theConstitution as it pleases subject to certain cooling-off periods andsuper-majority rules for certain issues.
