Outside of an appeal against Chief Justice Zaila McCalla's ruling, delivered last Friday, there will soon be a by-election for the West Portland parliamentary seat, which the chief justice has ordered to vacate by Mr Daryl Vaz.

Or, Prime Minister Bruce Golding could decide to call a general election, in a bid to strengthen his parliamentary majority and, in his mind, gain a firmer grasp of the Government. That, though, would be a route against which we would advise, and one which we do not believe that Jamaican people would want to traverse at this time.

But, whatever the political calculations, and their outcomes, in the aftermath of Justice McCalla's ruling, the fact that this case went to court is good for Jamaica. Not only has it, at least at the instant level, clarified a key constitutional point on parliamentary representation, it affords the country the opportunity to open serious debate on the matter and what we wish to do about it.

At issue was whether Mr Vaz, returned in last September's general election as the winner of the West Portland constituency against Abe Dabdoub, was eligible to contest a seat in the House of Representatives Mr Dabdoub insisted that Vaz, who holds dual citizenship - Jamaican and United States - was not.

Mr Vaz, it was argued, had breached Section 40 (2) (a) of the Jamaican Constitution that bars membership to Parliament to a person who is "by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state". Mr Vaz, who holds and travels on a US passport, claimed that he was exempt from this provision, given that he became a citizen of the United States because his mother was a citizen, even though, as it was pointed out in the hearing, he, on his own accord, later gained his US travel document.

Over the longer term, Jamaica, with its large and economically important and active diaspora, will have to decide whether it wants to maintain this constitutional provision that was put in place by the founding fathers for good reason - the need to be certain about the allegiance of those we entrust with political power.

Of more immediate concern from this ruling are the political implications of the ruling, especially for the governing Jamaica Labour Party, given its prior slim 32 to 28 majority in the House.

The good news for Mr Golding is that the seat was not awarded to Mr Dabdoub, as he said it should have been. A by-election should be comfortably won by the JLP. The same should be the case in North East St Ann should the courts hold that Shahine Robinson, who faces a similar challenge, be disqualified from Parliament.

In the event, therefore, the JLP should maintain its slim majority, which, nonetheless, is sufficient for it to govern effectively. Mr Golding, of course, may want to take advantage of the presumed post-defeat disarray of the People's National Party. But, as he well knows, elections in Jamaica can be particularly disruptive and economically wearying. Jamaicans are hardly likely to want one in a hurry.

And even if the JLP wins, Mr Golding may find that with the economic hiatus of the campaign, he will have to start from scratch in any repair effort.

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