Alliance for Change (AFC) Leader Raphael Trotman yesterday said he is trying to confirm the party’s parliamentarians who have dual citizenship and said that those persons cannot be publicly named without the party’s consent.
“I am in the process of verifying which MPs representing the AFC have dual citizenship,” Trotman said. The issue of MPs with dual citizenship took centre stage following a `yes’ vote from government parliamentarian Charrandass Persaud, who is the holder of a Canadian passport, which resulted in the Opposition PPP/C’s no confidence motion being declared passed on December 21. Following the vote he left the country and is now in Canada
According to Article 155 (1) (a) “No person shall be qualified for election as a member of the National Assembly who is, by virtue of his or her own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state.”
Questions have been raised as to why steps were not taken to ensure that this constitutional provision was not violated. There have been calls for the parliamentary parties to make public the names of the members who have dual citizenship.
When asked about the release of the names of his party members, Trotman said “I may be able to say when complete but will need the party’s permission to publish one way or another.”
Stabroek News made numerous attempts to contact Minister of State Joseph Harmon who is the Chairman of the major coalition partner, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) yesterday on the status of APNU MPs but was unsuccessful.
This newspaper has since learnt that besides Persaud who has been expelled from the AFC, the AFC has no other member who has dual citizenship. There are four APNU members who reportedly have such a status, two are United States (US) citizens while two are holders of British passports. On the opposition side, this newspaper was told that one is a Canadian citizen while two have US citizenship.
On December 21st, a ‘yes’ vote from Persaud to an Opposition PPP/C sponsored no-confidence motion against the government tipped the scales 33-32 in favour of the motion. Consequently, Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Barton Scotland ruled that the motion had been carried. The government subsequently sent the Speaker a legal brief outlining six consequences of the vote and asked him to consider them and reverse his ruling. Scotland, at a sitting of the National Assembly last Thursday, said he would not do so and urged that the court be approached to seek redress.
Attorney General Basil Williams subsequently told reporters that the government’s case will be two-fold – Persaud’s alleged disqualification from voting given his Canadian citizenship and that 34 rather than 33 votes constitute the majority required for the no-confidence motion to pass.
The citizenship aspect of the case was filed the following day by private citizen Compton Reid who is represented by a team of lawyers headed by Senior Counsel Rex McKay.
Reid, a farmer of Lot 267 Errol’s Ville, Vryman’s Erven, New Amsterdam Berbice in his urgent fixed date application which will be heard next Tuesday by acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire, says that at all material times, Persaud purported to be a validly elected member of the National Assembly.
This, he said, was achieved by virtue of Persaud being extracted from the APNU+AFC geographic constituency list for Region 6—East Berbice, Corentyne for the 2015 National and Regional Elections, though he knew he had allegiance, obedience and adherence as a citizen, to a foreign power, Canada.
Reid deposed in his application that Persaud had been the holder of a valid Canadian passport No. AC773625 issued by the Government of Canada on 25th October 2017, which will expire on the 25th October 2022.
This current passport he said, was a replacement of the previous passport No. JX818124, which was issued to Persaud on 29th January 2013 and which expired on 29th January 2018.
He is arguing that by virtue of Article 156 (3) (a) and (b) of the Constitution, a member of the National Assembly ought to signal to the Speaker, any intention to defect from the list from which he/she would have been extracted.
To this end, he referenced where in Article 153 (a) it states, “A member of the National Assembly elected on a list shall cease to be a member of the Assembly, if- (a) he or she declares in writing to the Speaker or to the representative of the list from which his or her name was extracted that he or she will not support the list from which his or her name was extracted.”
He then goes on to note subsection (b) which requires that, “he or she declares in writing to the Speaker or to the representative of the list from which his or her name was extracted, his or her support for another list.”
Reid argues that under the Canadian Citizenship Act. RSC 1985 c. C-29 and its Regulations, an applicant for citizenship of Canada is obliged under Section 24 of the said Act, to swear an oath of citizenship that is stated in the Regulations of the Act, which includes swearing an oath of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen of Canada.
On this point, Reid surmised that by virtue of his Canadian citizenship, Persaud is a person who, by his own act was under an acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience and adherence to a foreign power and therefore not qualified to be elected a Member of the National Assembly of Guyana and had no legal right to vote as an elected member of the National Assembly of Guyana.
Williams at a press conference on December 31, explained that when a person is to be a candidate, he has to sign a statutory declaration. That person also swears that he is cognisant of the qualifications and disqualifications as outlined in the Constitution. Williams explained that Persaud would have signed the candidate declaration form knowing that as a Canadian citizen, he is disqualified. The form is included in the Representation of the People Act and once filled must be submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). The forms makes no direct reference to dual citizenship. In part, candidates are asked to declare that they are “aware of the provisions of articles 53 and 155 of the constitution with respect to the qualifications and disqualifications for election as a Member of the national Assembly.”
