NASSAU, Bahamas – Former Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson urged the government to pass legislation giving Bahamian men and women an equal chance to pass citizenship to their children and spouses, calling this a “no-brainer”, The Tribune reported on Monday, April 3, in an article written by Lynaire Munnings.
She was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an Inter-American Development Bank workshop at Island House on Friday.
Attorney General Ryan Pinder said in February that legislation allowing Bahamian men and women to pass on citizenship in all circumstances would be brought once the Privy Council has ruled on whether children born out of wedlock to Bahamian fathers and foreign mothers have an automatic right to citizenship.
The delay has frustrated critics. Mr Pinder had previously said the legislation would be brought to Parliament by the end of last summer. Last year, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said the Davis administration should prove its commitment to reforming citizenship laws by abandoning its appeal of Chief Justice Ian Winder’s landmark ruling. The Privy Council, however, heard arguments on the matter on January 17.
Bahamians rejected more liberal citizenship laws in the 2002 and 2016 constitutional referendums.
Mrs Maynard-Gibson said people should push for change.
“I urge us to think about what the suffragists did, us as women, us as Bahamians who believe that all Bahamians, women and men are entitled to be treated equally and I say that there’s already a bill drafted that gives women the right to pass their citizenship on to their spouses and their citizenship on to their children and single Bahamian men also to pass their citizenship on to their children under certain circumstances,” she said.
See complete article in The Tribune at http://www.tribune242.com/news/2023/apr/03/citizenship-bill-no-brainer-maynard-gibson-calls-g/
