Court of Appeal’s reasons revealed [updated]

The Court of Appeal cited the role of the electorate in determining a political representative as among its reasons for not awarding the West Portland constituency to the PNP’s Abe Dabdoub.



In its 82-page written judgement handed down this afternoon, the appeal judges pointed to established precedent for their decision.



In arriving at their decision to uphold the ruling for a by election, Justices Seymour Panton, Algernon Smith and Karl Harrison relied on the 1977 election case of Mattison v Junor.



The case was decided by retired Chief Justice, Kenneth Smith, who ruled that a person for whom the majority of the electorate did not vote, should not be imposed on the constituents.



People\'s National Party Candidate, Abe Dabdoub filed an election petition after the September 3, 2007 general election, contending that Daryl Vaz had dual citizenship and was not entitled to serve as an MP.



Chief Justice Zaila McCalla heard the election petition and ruled that because Vaz who inherited American citizenship from his mother and obtained a US passport since he was an adult and traveled on it, he had pledged allegiance to a foreign power.



The Appeal Court upheld the Chief Justice\'s ruling noting that it was the use of a foreign passport by Vaz which showed his allegiance to a foreign state.



In his judgment, Justice Panton, the Court of Appeal President said there was notice to the electors that Vaz had dual citizenship.



Justice Panton emphasised that after Dabdoub issued the notices, the then Director of Elections, Danville Walker, issued press releases that all the candidates were properly nominated.



However, the Electoral Office of Jamaica warned the electors that they were not to be misled by the notice from Mr. Dabdoub and his counsel.



He further said that it was not inconceivable that the majority of the electors, even if they were aware of Mr. Dabdoub\'s notice, would have accepted the notices from the EOJ as gospel.



Additionally, Justice Panton said consideration has to be given to the reasoning behind the relevant clauses in the constitution to see whether the history and present day realities warrant amendments.