The Jamaican Supreme Court, declared the North-East St. Catherine seat (formerly held by Mr. Gregory Mair), vacant, today.
This means that a by-election will have to be held, to determine who should hold this seat (be Member of Parliament for this constituency).
Mrs. Phyllis Mitchell (the PNP candidate), through her lawyer, Mr. Abe Dabdoub, challenged the constitutionality of Mr. Mair's election to the House of Parliament.
[Mr. Mair was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North-East St. Catherine, in the 2007 General Election. However, he was a Venezuelan citizen when he was nominated as the JLP's Representative in that election.
He gained Venezuelan citizenship through his mother, but has subsequently acted upon his citizenship, by travelling on his Venezuelan passport.
The Jamaican Constitution bars Members of Parliament from being citizens of any other country outside of the Commonwealth. ]
Seeing that the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) only has three (3) more seats than the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) in the House of Parliament, both the JLP and PNP have been using the dual-citizenship cases to retain and gain seats in the House, in order to have a safe majority or to gain a majority, respectively.
Current standings in the House of Parliament, are as follows:
JLP seats: 31
PNP seats: 28
Empty seat: 1 ].
The ruling was expected, in light of the Abe Dabdoub-Daryl Vaz ruling which declared the West-Portland seat vacant,in March of this year.
Following today's ruling by Justice Horace Marsh, Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, announced that Nomination Day will be on next Friday, May 29 and that the date for by-election, will be Tuesday, June 16,2007.
The judge ordered Mr. Mair to pay Mrs. Mitchell's legal fees, which amount to Jamaican dollar (JMD) $3 million + GCT (General Consumption Tax). This is approximately JMD $ 3495,000 or USD $39,653.28.
One unfortunate thing about this by-election, is that Jamaicans will have to fork out another JMD $40 million, or more, for the Electoral Office of Jamaica to administer it.
(The West Portland by-election in March, cost Jamaicans JMD $40 million).
The unfortunate thing for Mr. Mair, is that over the past year, the people of North-East St.Catherine have not been satisfied with his performance as MP and so he may lose his seat to Mrs. Mitchell, or whomever the PNP may choose to contest the seat.
(Some North East St. Catherine residents have demonstrated publicly against Mr. Mair's apparent lack of concern for the bad road conditions in the constituency and the water problems they have been having).
As usual, Girl With a Purpose (GWAP) blog will keep you updated re this by-election and other by-elections to come.
Gillian
Sources Include
1) Nationwide Radio, May 21, 2009
2) Article,"Gregory Mair's seat declared vacant", Go-Jamaica, May 21,2009
3) Television Jamaica's Prime Time News at 7:00 p.m., May 21, 2009
