Dabdoub vs Vaz - Citizenship duel nears end
December 17, 2008
DECISION is to be handed down early next year in the dual-citizenship case which People's National Party candidate Abe Dabdoub has brought against West Portland Member of Parliament (MP) Daryl Vaz. President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Seymour Panton, and Justices Algernon Smith and Karl Harrison, heard legal arguments and reserved their decision on December 3.
Dabdoub had filed an election petition after the general election last year, claiming that Vaz was not entitled to be an MP because he was an American citizen and the holder of a United States (US) passport.
Chief Justice Zaila McCalla heard the matter in the Supreme Court and in April ruled that although Vaz inherited citizenship through his mother, an American citizen, he had obtained a passport and travelled on it, and, therefore, was not entitled to be an MP. She ordered a by-election in the constituency of West Portland.
Dabdoub appealed the chief justice's ruling, contending that she erred in her ruling because he should have been returned as the duly elected MP for the constituency.
American citizenship
Vaz also appealed on grounds that he did not obtain American citizenship because of his own act, but through his mother.
Following the chief justice's ruling, Vaz renounced his American citizenship. He remains an MP because he has been given a stay of execution pending the outcome of the appeal.
Attorneys-at-law Gayle Nelson and Jalil Dabdoub, who represented Dabdoub, submitted that Dabdoub gave adequate notice to the electors in the constituency that Vaz was an American citizen.
They argued that constituents who voted for Vaz would have wasted their votes. They submitted that those who voted for Dabdoub would be disenfranchised if the order for a by-election was upheld....
Author: Barbara Gayle
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
