'Come clean' - Thwaites urges MPs to declare citizenship status as election looms in Jamaica
Published:Tuesday | November 16, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
It has been 602 days since a member of the legislature urged his colleagues in the House of Representatives to reveal their citizenship status.
Now, Ronald Thwaites wants the issue to be accelerated and dealt with ahead of the next general election.
"We are not all that far from an election, and candidates are being chosen by both parties," Thwaites told The Gleaner yesterday. "Are we going to go ahead on the same basis as we are now, or is a change to be contemplated?"
The Central Kingston member of parliament (MP) has been seeking to have the House consider the resolution since March 2009.
Leader of Government Business Andrew Holness had promised a debate would have taken place on the motion two months ago, but it has not happened. Holness could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Thwaites is insisting that settling the issue of eligibility to sit in Parliament is "one of the issues that we undertake clearly before we undertake another election".
His motion reads: "Be it resolved that every member of this Honourable House declare in this chamber his or her citizenship or permanent residency in any country other than Jamaica. And be it further resolved that as a matter of urgency, the Honourable House debate under what, if any, circumstances citizens with dual nationality ought to be excluded from parliamentary membership."
Under the Constitution, persons who have sworn allegiance or obedience to a foreign power are not entitled to sit in the House of Representatives.
Thwaites told The Gleaner: "The social patterns and demography of Jamaica since Independence do not make it realistic to have that provision in it any more - not in the absolute way that it is."
He added: "A person who either by birth, or who, by purposes of education or health consideration, has American citizenship, I do not think should be disqualified when the man from Bangladesh or Fiji can come here and become prime minister."
Daryl Vaz, in 2008, became the first member of parliament to be disqualified from sitting in the House after the court found he was a United States citizen. Vaz relinquished his US citizenship and was returned to Parliament by way of a by-election.
Two other government MPs, Gregory Mair and Michael Stern, were also booted, but won subsequent by-elections.
Shahine Robinson, also a government MP, was recently kicked out by the court. A by-election has not been ordered in North East St Ann, which she represented.
Two opposition members - South Central St Catherine MP Sharon Hay-Webster and West Hanover MP Ian Hayles - have been accused of having been in breach of the Constitution when they were elected. Hayles is facing a challenge in the court, while Mair has moved a motion in Parliament for Hay-Webster to be dismissed.
In a resolution brought against Hay-Webster in June, Mair said she publicly acknowledged in August 2009 that she still held a United States passport, and he called for the House to "invite the member of Parliament for South Central St Catherine to renounce immediately her position as a member of this Honourable House in accordance with the principle of law upheld by the ruling of the Court of Appeal."
Thwaites, meanwhile, has questioned the reason for his motion not being taken in the House after a year and seven months.
"It would not take 20 minutes for everybody to stand up and say what their position is," Thwaites said, while arguing that dual citizenship challenges in the courts were costly and that the question marks around members' status affected the integrity of the Parliament.