Dual citizenship debate Political parties and GECOM share responsibility for ensuring MPs’ eligibility

Jan 10, 2019 News

---

 

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the political parties should share the responsibility of ensuring eligibility of Members of Parliament (MPs) on the basis of their citizenship.
This view was expressed by those who have chimed in on the debate over MPs holding dual citizenship following an act of swearing allegiance to a foreign nation. While it is public knowledge that each MP is culpable for his/her declaration, the question of who has responsibility of verifying that Parliamentarians make honest declarations about their citizenship arises.
Attorney-at-law, Christopher Ram is adamant that GECOM, as the elections regulator, must be tasked with verification of the sworn information.
“GECOM, as the regulator of the Elections, must accept that responsibility. My position has not changed. The Elections Body must vet the list provided to them by these political parties. I strongly hold the view that they should be able to verify the information provided to them with the understanding that the list consists of names of potential parliamentarians.”
“It is grossly reckless of GECOM to shelve the burden… I wrote to GECOM and brought it to their attention, but it is not like the Commission doesn’t understand the gravity.”

Former Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang also expressed his views on the matter. Chang noted that while GECOM has the elections mandate of regulations, it‘s the political parties that compose the list.
“They (the parties) must know who they’re putting on their list. They should ask the questions in view of the constitutional provisions. So it is the Party, which has primary responsibility and then GECOM should bear some of the burden as the elections body.”
However, an official at GECOM, who weighed in on the discussion said that the Elections Commission is not mandated by law to do any follow-ups on the sworn declarations provided by the list of the candidates.
The official noted that GECOM is equipped with the capacity to police the list.
“Unless something fundamentally changes, discerning citizenship can be a lengthy process. That‘s why it should be done on merit. A candidate should be honest enough to declare citizenship or face the consequences for making the false declaration.”
Additionally, the official noted that the time between submission of list and elections is a short period to do any such investigation.
“Each party is required to submit the list 32 days before elections are held.”
According to the Representation of the People Act, each list of candidates shall be accompanied by a statutory declaration, in Form 3, by each person named therein as a candidate.
Each candidate must declare in the form, his qualifications and consent, before a justice of the peace, commissioner of oaths, notary public, or other person authorised by law to administer an oath in the place where the declaration is made.
Further to that, candidates who fail to disclose information on citizenship are in breach of the Statutory Declarations Act Cap 5:09, which stipulates in Section 4, that it is an offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of one year, to make in a statutory declaration, a statement false in fact.
Over the years, Parliamentarians have been shrugging off the gravity of this declaration, to the point that at least a third of sitting members on both sides of the House are said to be holders of foreign passports. The matter has, once again, gained prominence with the contention that expelled Alliance For Change (AFC) member, Charrandass Persaud’s dual citizenship status invalidated his vote in support of the No-confidence Motion that brought the APNU-AFC Government down.
The motion has resulted in at least one court matter being filed against Persaud, who has been a Canadian citizen for almost 20 years.
Even before that, Ram had also raised the issue, prior to the 2011 General Election, in a letter to the then Chief Election Officer Gocool Boodoo. He had

reminded the official that it was his duty to ensure the elections are held in accordance with all laws.
“It is my view that there is a serious obligation on your part to verify that the eligibility requirements are satisfied. You should be aware too, that while there might have been breaches in the past, this cannot justify a continuation of an unconstitutional violation in such an important matter,” he had said.

Ram had observed that this is more than an academic matter.
“The constitutional provisions are intended to ensure that our legislators are loyal to Guyana and Guyana alone. A similar situation arose in Jamaica recently, where politician Mr. Daryl Vaz gave up his naturalized US citizenship in order to continue in Jamaican politics.”
“For too long many of our laws have been honoured in the breach. It is particularly egregious when persons who, smugly holding aloft in their faith, are going to swear to uphold the Constitution and the laws of Guyana, are themselves in blatant breach of the Constitution. That is hypocrisy.”

---

---