Dabdoub appeal continues today
Published:Monday | December 1, 2008 | 7:59 AM
People’s National Party candidate, Abe Dabdoub is expected to return to court today as he seeks to have the Court of Appeal give a strict interpretation to the section of the Jamaican Constitution, which deals with dual citizenship.
The submission forms part of Dabdoub’s appeal in the dual citizenship case brought against West Portland Member of Parliament Daryl Vaz.
Dabdoub is contending that Chief Justice Zaila McCalla was correct when she found in May this year that Vaz was not entitled to be a Member of the House of Representatives.
The ruling was based on the fact that he was the holder of a US passport and had pledged allegiance to a foreign power, which was in breach of the Jamaican Constitution.
Dabdoub is asking the court to set aside the Chief Justice\'s ruling and order that he be returned as the duly elected candidate for the constituency in the general elections on September 3 last year.
Attorney-at-law Jalil Daboub who is representing Dabdoub argued on Friday that Vaz was disqualified by virtue of his foreign citizenship and by his voluntary declaration of such an allegiance.
He said the Chief Justice was correct in her ruling in relation to the US passport but should have gone further to say that Vaz by his own act had remained under an allegiance to a foreign power.