Shahine quits
Published:Friday | September 17, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
The member of parliament for North East St Ann, Shahine Robinson, will be ousted effective today.
Robinson's lawyers yesterday announced at the pretrial review in the Supreme Court that she was no longer opposing the election petition.
Supreme Court judge Roy Jones has given Robinson until today to file the notice of her intention with the registrar of the Supreme Court.
As soon as she files the notice that she does not intend to oppose the election petition, she will no longer be the MP and her seat will become vacant.
Elector Manley Bowen had filed the election petition days after the September 3, 2007 general election, contending that Robinson was not entitled to sit in Parliament because she was an American citizen.
Bowen said in court documents that at the time when Robinson was nominated for the general election, she had dual citizenship and was in breach of the Election Petition Act and the Constitution of Jamaica.
Last week, Bowen's lawyers Abe Dabdoub and Raymond Clough filed in the Supreme Court an alien registration card and a naturalisation certificate, both dated January 21, 2006.
Robinson was asked to respond to those documents at the pretrial review yesterday. She was also asked to verify whether it was true that on January 26, 2006 she swore allegiance to a foreign power.
Today will not be the first time that Robinson will be booted from Parliament. Justice Roy Jones in May declared her seat vacant because she did not comply with case-management orders to file a proper defence and supply statements and disclosures.
She applied in June to have the order set aside and after giving a satisfactory explanation, Justice Jones granted her application.
The election petition was set for hearing for five days, commencing October 5.
Robinson is the last of the four Jamaica Labour Party MPs who were ousted from Parliament because of dual citizenship. The others were Daryl Vaz, Gregory Mair and Michael Stern. Following their disqualification by the court, they were re-elected in subsequent by-elections.
Yesterday, JLP Deputy Treasurer Vaz said Robinson is in the process of renouncing her US citizenship, an indication that she is preparing to face the electorate.
Contest and return
"I expect that an election would be called and that Shahine Robinson would contest the election and return," Vaz said.
Peter Bunting, the general secretary of the Opposition People's National Party (PNP), said the party has not yet decided whether it would be going into by-election mode.
"My understanding is that the matter is not concluded and so it would be premature to start signalling a strategy," Bunting said.
He said that several factors would have to be taken into account by the party in determining whether it would contest a by-election. Among the factors, Bunting said, would be if Robinson decides to face the electorate.
Robinson was first elected to Parliament in 2001 when she polled 7,743 votes to the PNP's Carol Jackson's 7,234.
She subsequently extended her victory margin to 1,174 in the 2002 general election and then 2,022 in the 2007 general election.