Pressure on Horne to come clean on citizenship - Gov’t says cockroach staying out of PNP’s fowl fight
Published:Thursday | December 10, 2020 | 12:12 AM
Edmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
Attorney-at-law Jalil Dabdoub says if the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Norman Horne holds United States citizenship, the governor general and leader of the Opposition should act by withdrawing his appointment and bring the ensuing Senate debacle to an immediate end.
Speculation has for weeks hung over Horne that he is the holder of a valid United States passport, rendering him ineligible for membership in the Senate. Only Commonwealth dual citizenship is allowed for holders of seats in Jamaica’s bicameral Parliament.
“For either of them to continue to fail to act would be a dereliction of their own constitutional duties,” said Dabdoub in a letter to the editor published in today’s Gleaner.
Horne, who has declined to clarify his citizenship status, is at the centre of a controversy dogging the PNP after indicating in October that he would defer the Senate appointment by then Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips weeks before Phillips relinquished that position to Mark Golding who defeated Lisa Hanna in an internal election.
But Golding’s hands might be tied because he cannot unilaterally remove Horne from the Senate.
Meanwhile, leader of opposition business in the House of Representatives, Anthony Hylton, said that discussions were taking place at the “appropriate level” to resolve the Senate stalemate.
“I believe cooler heads will prevail,” he told The Gleaner on Tuesday.
St Catherine North West Member of Parliament Hugh Graham said he was struggling to understand why Horne had taken this posture.
“Whilst we are involved in all these kinds of squabble, Rome is burning, and we really need to get our act together so that we can represent the people in the way that we should,” Graham said in a Gleaner interview.
“I think that former senator Norman Horne should do the right because he did not take up the position,” the first-time MP declared.
Asked to comment on the Senate saga bedevilling the PNP, the state minister of information, Robert Morgan, quipped: “Cockroach nuh business in a fowl fight.”
He told journalists during a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday that the Government was focused on managing the country and would “not necessarily have an interest in the issues of a political organisation”.
A statement issued by the PNP on Tuesday said that Golding had impressed on Horne the urgency of the matter and the significance of the orderly running of the Senate. The Senate vacancy means that the Opposition is one seat short to prevent the Government from getting close to a two-thirds majority - important muscle to force through legislation.
The Senate consists of eight opposition and 13 government places.
Golding pointed to two options available to Horne: that he dispatch his letter of resignation to the governor general or that he indicate that he intends to take the oath of office and be sworn in as senator.
The PNP said that if Horne chooses to be sworn in, he should provide evidence that he had renounced his United States citizenship prior to his appointment to the Senate in order to clarify his eligibility.