Kingston, May 8, 2008 -- We are not going to support any view that says laws should be changed when they are found to be inconvenient to any particular individual or situation. The Jamaican Constitution, on which our laws are based, remains supreme.
Because we are a nation of laws, we must accept that while a piece of
legislation remains in force, we must act accordingly, even if it
appears that our best interests are not being served, as in the case of
the dual citizenship issue which has thrown up a constitutional crisis
that, we fear, will get worse before it gets better.
We are, of course, reminded of the view - it might have been the words
of Lord Acton - that "the law is an ass" for that very reason.
What we are going to argue, however, is that laws can become irrelevant
over time and wise countries will find it necessary to review them, to
ensure that they serve the best interest of the people.
The resignation of Mr Danville Walker as director of elections on
Monday, and before that the renunciation of his United States
citizenship by Mr Daryl Vaz, the member of parliament for West
Portland, are two cases in point.
At issue is their allegiance to a foreign power, in this case, the
United States of America. By being US citizens, the court has now held,
they have sworn allegiance to a foreign power and, in the case of Mr
Vaz, cannot sit in the Jamaican parliament, or in Mr Walkers' case,
cannot hold the position of director of elections.
The assumption is that there is some perceived conflict in swearing
allegiance to more than one state, or that it is not possible to hold
allegiance to more than one state.
Obviously, this perceived conflict does not arise where it concerns the
sixty-odd countries of the British Commonwealth. But who will deny that
today's Jamaica has far more ties with the United States than with
Pakistan or Sri Lanka or New Zealand for that matter? It is needless to
spell out the many ways here.
It is possible to have dual citizenship with Canada, which is a
Commonwealth country, so the question is what makes that more important
to our national interest than the United States where we have more
nationals and who are our biggest trading partner?
Then there is our embrace of world globalisation; the encouragement of
our nationals to become citizens in their adopted countries; our
intense reliance on remittances from those self-same citizen-nationals;
the increasing recruitment of Jamaicans - namely nurses, teachers and
hotel workers - to work in other countries; and the encouragement of
our nationals to gain skills and return home to contribute to our
development.
All of these developments might well have not been factored in when the
framers of our Constitution sat down at the table four or so decades
ago, though we suspect that they did not assume themselves to be
omnipotent and omnipresent, but understood that there would be times
when we have to review their work.
This, we suggest, is one such time.
Mr Vaz and Mr Walker - and many others yet unnamed - have proven their
allegiance to this country by choosing to live, work and raise their
families here.
And this is only one side of the dual citizenship coin. The impact of
Justice Zalia McCalla's ruling on the parliament is still to fully
unfold.
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