It is impatient of debate that Danville Walker's decade-long tenure as Jamaica's director of elections has been mostly outstanding.

He did not conceive the idea of the electronic verification of voters, but he worked tirelessly for its implementation. That system, because of its use of biometrics to identify voters, substantially eliminated multiple registration, thereby reducing voting fraud.

But perhaps Danville Walker's greatest contribution to Jamaica's electoral process was his conviction that this country, not only should have, but deserved the best election system - for it is important to democracy.

In the achievement of this, he brought a necessary stubbornness to the job. In a sense, Walker's great strength was perhaps also his great weakness, as was evidenced by his contentious statement about the nomination process in West Portland, about which much was made in the court case involving Daryl Vaz and Abe Dabdoub.

But the law is the law and ought to be a shackle on our conduct. For in the absence of the rule of law, only anarchy can reign. In that regard, Mr Walker's resignation on Tuesday was neither sudden nor unexpected.

Owes allegiance to foreign power

The fact is that Mr Walker is a United States citizen, who, by his own act owes allegiance to a foreign power. Under the Electoral Commission Act, as was the case in the Representation of the People Act, allegiance to a foreign power disqualifies Walker, or anyone else, from holding the post of director of elections.

In that regard, no one who is a citizen of another country should hold the job in the first place. But nobody paid much attention until Mr Dabdoub invoked a similar constitutional provision against Mr Vaz, and Mr Walker's status was raised during court arguments.

Walker and the commissioners preferred to await Chief Justice McCalla's interpretation of the Constitution in the Vaz case before deciding to act on the director's status.

However, the requirement of the law is now fulfilled. But unlike the Constitution, this provision in the law is easily changed, if that is the wish of the Jamaican people. We believe that a change is in order.

'A man of principle'

Nonetheless, we note with unease the tone of Electoral Commission member, Dr Herbert Thompson, in commenting on Walker's resignation. There seems to be more than a hint in Dr Thompson's remarks, reported by this newspaper, that Walker was hounded out of the job. He said that there were people who wanted 'Mr Walker's head', presumably because he is 'a man of principle'. Dr Thompson also seems to imply that Walker may not have renounced his US citizenship to stay in the job because he felt there was ingratitude on the part of the Jamaican people.

We hope that there is a greater, but perhaps hidden context, to Dr Thompson's statement. For it is precisely because of Walker's commitment to principle and his belief in the law and the basis upon which it is founded, that he resigned.

As Walker said in his statement on Tuesday, "The law must be upheld even when it is inconvenient and especially so by those of us who seek to set an example as public servants." We wish Walker well.