JG - I will renounce! Hay-Webster to give up US citizenship

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Gleaner

I will renounce! Hay-Webster to give up US citizenship

Published: Sunday August 2, 2009

Hay-Webster


Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter


South Central St Catherine Member of Parliament (MP) Sharon Hay-Webster has decided to give up the land of her birth - the United States of America (USA).

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Hay-Webster, an Opposition MP, has initiated the process of renouncing her US citizenship in order to remain a member of the House of Representatives.

Fifteen months ago, an unyielding Hay-Webster, with legal team in tow, was ready for a showdown with her political adversaries to prove that despite possessing a US passport, she was eligible to sit in the lower house.

But yesterday Hay-Webster hoisted the proverbial white flag. "I told my constituency executive on Friday night that I intend to renounce and the party chairman is also aware … I told them I have been in discussion with the embassy already," she told The Sunday Gleaner in solemn tones."

"Her move to relinquish her US citizenship is the latest causality in the politically charged dual citizenship maelstrom rocking Gordon House.

Already, the court has booted three MPs - Daryl Vaz, Gregory Mair and Michael Stern - from Parliament because of the constitutional breach that rendered them ineligible to sit in the lower house when they were elected in the 2007 general election."

&

"Under the Jamaican Con-stitution, non-commonwealth nationals, who have pledged allegiance to a foreign power, are disqualified to sit in the House."


tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com