ABSTRACT
To bring a country to independence and, to a lesser extent, to self-governance, important changes normally have to be made to the structure of government, and, therefore, some substantial modifications have to be made to the constituent laws. These changes may be made by way of a written constitution, or they may be made by way of legislation or subsidiary legislation. The advantage of the former over the latter is that a written constitution symbolises and expresses, both to people within the country and to people outside, the very important changes that have been made to the government of the country, and enhances the status and the national identity of the newly emerged State. Not surprisingly, in all countries in the region, the constituent laws designed to provide for independence or self-governance were set out in a written constitution, except in Tonga where, as mentioned earlier, the 1875 Constitution, which was enacted when the country was independent, remained throughout the period of dependency until the country achieved complete independence in 1970.
