Perhaps by the time the by-election in the West Portland constituency is over, the justices of the Court of Appeal will have delivered the reasons for their decision in the Daryl Vaz/Abe Dabdoub case, and the courts will have fast-tracked other hearings on whether some members of the legislature are there illegally.

And maybe after that, the country can get down to a serious and useful debate over who should be eligible to sit in the Parliament, taking into account the exigencies of today's global environment, the large numbers of Jamaicans who reside abroad and the philosophical and moral underpinnings that ought to attend any such discourse.

Expressions of concern

This issue was, to us, always important. However, the need for expedition is further highlighted by what can only be interpreted as a cynical application of the law by the People's National Party (PNP) in its choice of candidate for the West Portland election, aimed at achieving a narrow political end.

It also serves to reinforce our previously expressed concern at the action of the justices of the Court of Appeal that left us without the benefit of their reasoning in Vaz/Dabdoub, even as we proceed to the by-election.

Mr Vaz, it is recalled, represented the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the constituency during the 2007 general election. His opponent, Mr Dabdoub, argued that Mr Vaz was not eligible because, as an American citizen of dual nationality, he had, by his own act, pledged allegiance to a foreign power. Such persons are barred from being members of parliament.

Mr Vaz won at the poll and Mr Dabdoub went to the court, arguing that he should be automatically awarded the seat as the only legitimately nominated candidate in the election.

Mr Vaz, one of four JLP MPs similarly challenged, held that he escaped the trap, having got his citizenship from his American mother, except - as Chief Justice Zaila McCalla held - he, as an adult, applied for and used an American passport. She ordered a by-election.

Commonwealth citizenship

Mr Vaz, having renounced his American citizenship, is again contesting the seat. The PNP nominated Kenneth Rowe, a JLP defector, who has residency status in Canada and a Canadian passport. But he can contest the seat because Canada is a Commonwealth country and the Constitution seems to indicate that citizens from Commonwealth states, having resided for a year in Jamaica, can be members of the legislature.

There are some, though, Mr Dabdoub included, who believe that on a fuller reading of the Constitution, Commonwealth citizens are also ineligible. Unfortunately, in the absence of their argument, we do not know if the Appeal justices considered this point in upholding Justice McCalla's findings.

For the PNP, the law, in the current circumstance, provided no shackle from which they had to break loose. But we hear a crunching, underfoot sound against morality - unless being moral is defined as what is narrowly legal.

The Vaz/Dabdoub issue is too close, too recent, and too fundamental for an absence of qualm on the part of Mr Rowe and the leadership of the PNP.

It is all too sad, for the people of West Portland, like the rest of Jamaica, are deserving of a good dose of moral leadership and fewer windy declarations about performance.

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