‘Dual citizenship is attractive for many reasons, but there are times when it simply should not be tolerated. Serving as the elected official of a country at the national level is one of those times. No congressman or senator should have even the appearance of divided loyalties that dual citizenship brings’ (https://www.forbes.com/).
The discourse about the right of Guyanese dual citizens to become parliamentarians, government ministers, etc., came to the fore after the 2018 no confidence motion (NCM). As a parliamentarian for many years and unlike many of the 15 Australian MPs who in 2017 did not realise that dual citizens could not sit in parliament, I was aware that it was illegal for MPs to be dual citizens but as with so many archaic laws I treated the situation as a relic that is not unusual in any jurisdiction. Indeed, so commonplace is this behaviour that the legal doctrine of desuetude holds that long and continued non-use of a law renders it invalid and sufficient notice of the intention to restart enforcement is required if the courts are to punish transgressors. The NCM and its consequences were to be the catalyst that forced upon us a string of important considerations that will undoubtedly be on the agenda of any future constitutional reform process.
