The Constitutional Reform Commission has taken a “perverse” and “regressive” policy on the issue of citizenship for foreign spouses, lawyer and president of the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association Fred Smith told The Tribune yesterday.
The commission was “misguided”, he said, to believe that it can level the inequity between the genders in this respect by removing the right of both genders to transmit citizenship automatically to their non-Bahamian spouse.
Mr Smith was hitting out at the provisional recommendations made by the constitutional reform commission in relation to the transmission of citizenship from a Bahamian woman to her foreign spouse – one of the most controversial issues of constitutional reform when it was originally presented to the public by the former FNM administration.
In its provisional recommendations, the commission said that the Constitution should provide that non- Bahamians married to citizen of the country should have a right to reside and work in the Bahamas and own property jointly and upon application the right to become a Bahamian citizen five years after marriage, subject to such exceptions or qualifications as may be prescribed in the interests of national security or public policy.
This would mean that neither Bahamian men nor Bahamian women would have the right to transmit citizenship automatically to their non-Bahamian spouse.
“If the proposal is to take away rights then the constitutional commission has taken a regressive and xenophobic step backwards. It is not the function of the constitutional commission to begin whittling away or taking away people’s rights. If we are to level the playing field we should be giving rights. We should be more generous and more expansive,” Mr Smith said.
The commission in its report said that there was overwhelming support for equity between the sexes and for the removal of any form of discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender, especially with regard to the ability of a married Bahamian woman to transmit citizenship to the child born outside the Bahamas.
So far as acquisition of citizenship by marriage is concerned, the majority of persons felt that acquisition should not be automatic for either non-Bahamian males or females and that a waiting period would be appropriate for both.
There was wide divergence between persons regarding the time period for the grant of citizenship, ranging from those who preferred five or 10 years to those who said never, and others who said it should be automatic on marriage.
The commission also recommended that the constitutional provision that children born outside of the Bahamas to married Bahamian men have automatic Bahamian citizenship should also apply to children born outside the Bahamas to married Bahamian women, regardless of the nationality of their husband. He said that these children should have the same automatic entitlement to citizenship. As the law presently stands only children born to unmarried Bahamian women take their mother’s nationality.
Mr Smith agreed that women should be in no less than equal position to men under the constitution.
However, in his view, it was “a perverse and perverted approach to the Constitution to say that because women ‘don’t have these rights we are going to level the playing field by taking them away from the men as well. That is just absurd. If there is an inequality then women should be given the equal status for their spouses and children. The Human Rights Association decried such an approach and urged the Bahamian public to soundly condemn the constitutional commission for making such a dehumanizing suggestion for the Bahamian public to consider.”
In its provisional recommendations the commission said that different treatment accorded to non-Bahamian spouses of Bahamian citizens or gender discrimination should be deleted from relevant provisions of the Constitution. The Constitution, it said, should provide that nonnational spouses of Bahamian citizens should be treated equally.
Such persons upon marriage should have a right to reside and work in the Bahamas and own property jointly and upon application the right to become a Bahamian citizen five years after marriage subject to such exceptions or qualifications as may be prescribed in the interests of national security or public policy, according to the Commission.
However, Mr Smith said that it is a misconception that there are limitations on whether or not the foreign spouses of Bahamians can work in the country if married to a Bahamian.
“There should be no limitation under the immigration act for the spouse of any Bahamian man or Bahamian woman to work in the Bahamas. In fact what we should be doing is quickly amending our immigration act through ordinary legislation in parliament providing that spouses of Bahamian citizens whether they be male or female have the automatic right to work in the Bahamas once they become married.
“That would avoid a lot of expense for families a lot of anxiety, political interference and intimidation, Political victimization and it will allow the family and spouse of the Bahamian man or woman to feel secure in their own homeland and not to have to pay to have their male orfemale spouse to work in the country,” he said.
By RUPERT MISSICK Jr Chief Reporter
