This week, hundreds of Jamaicans who live abroad, mostly in the United States (US), Britain and Canada, will gather in Kingston for the biennial diaspora conference, a forum for deepening the relationship between those of us who live in the island and an equal amount overseas.

This is the third of these conferences which, like the others, will look at a wide range of issues. Recent circumstances, not the least being the more than 700 homicides in Jamaica already this year, seem to have pushed crime and its solution to the top of the conference agenda. But while this issue is of grave importance, we hope that other important matters are not ignored.

Indeed, this year's conference added significance for two reasons. It is the first since the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) formed the Government last September, so it provides an opportunity for the administration to set out its vision of the Jamaican diaspora and its role in national life.

Frank and honest debate

The second is related to the first; it's an opportunity for a frank and honest debate on the specific matter, now before the Jamaican courts, because of the Dabdoub/Vaz case, on who is allowed to sit in Parliament.

Under Section 40(2)(a) of the Jamaican Constitution, a person is ineligible for membership of Parliament if he/she "is, by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power."

Daryl Vaz, who won the West Portland parliamentary seat for the JLP last September, was at the time an American citizen, by virtue of being born to a mother who is an American and, as an adult, had obtained and travelled on a US passport. The court, on a challenge by his election opponent, Abe Dabdoub, ruled that Vaz could not sit in the House of Representatives.

Vaz has since renounced his American citizenship but has challenged the ruling. Dabdoub, too, has appealed, on the basis that the judge was wrong in ordering a by-election rather than awarding him the seat. There are other people in the House on the JLP side facing similar challenges, which, if they lose, would erode the ruling party's slim majority.

Substantial

But the more important issue to be determined is what role we expect overseas Jamaicans and their descendants to play in life at home. All sides say it should be substantial, and from an economic point of view, it already is. Each year, Jamaicans abroad remit billions of dollars, which trails only tourism for foreign exchange inflows. This newspaper, like others, have championed the notion of a greater Jamaica.

Indeed, when she was Prime Minister, the People's National Party leader Portia Simpson Miller talked of possible Senate representation of members of the diaspora. Similar sounds came from the JLP. No one seemed to have consulted the Constitution and recognised the limitations it placed on this, and more plainly, on those Jamaicans whose dual citizenship is outside the Commonwealth.

It would seem to us that there is need for a robust conversation on the issue outside the confines of narrow partisanship. For while, on the face of it, there might be a strong argument for ensuring undivided national loyalty from someone in the Government, the case appears compelling for not excluding Jamaicans of skill and value who already contribute heavily to national life.