NASSAU, Bahamas — In a major decision likely to have huge implications, the Privy Council has ruled that all children born outof wedlock to foreign women and Bahamian men are Bahamian citizens at birth, The Nassau Guardian reported on Thursday, May 4, in an article written by Executive Editor Candia Dames.
Up until this point, the constitution had been interpreted as providing a right to apply at age 18.
In making this important ruling, the Privy Council upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal, which upheld the earlier decision of Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder, now Chief Justice Sir Ian Winder.
The attorney general had appealed the Court of Appeal’s decision with the current and former attorneys general both taking the position that the highest court needed to settle the matter once and for all.
Shannon Tyreck Rolle and four others were respondents in this case.
At the heart of the matter was the interpretation of two articles of the constitution.
Article 6 states: “Every person born in The Bahamas after 9th July 1973 shall become a citizen of The Bahamas at the date of his birth if at that date either of his parents is a citizen of The Bahamas.”
Article 14(1) states: “Any reference in this chapter to the father of a person shall, in relation to any person born out of wedlock other than a person legitimated before 10th July 1973, be construed as a reference to the mother of that person.”
Justice Winder found that the use of “parents” in Article 6 was not an economy of drafting but intended to convey “the biological father or mother of the child unaffected by the artificial construct envisioned by Article 14(1)”.
In his view, it was ultimately not a question of counting words but of meaning, the Privy Council noted.
In her judgment, Court of Appeal Justice Stella Maureen Crane-Scott determined that Winder was correct to employ a generous and purposive approach to the interpretation of Article 6.
The Privy Council said if it had been the intention to exclude from Bahamian citizenship a child born in The Bahamas whose Bahamian father was not married to the child’s non-Bahamian mother, it would have been easy to have said so expressly as opposed to employing such a convoluted approach.
See complete article in The Nassau Guardian at https://thenassauguardian.com/privy-council-issues-major-ruling-on-citizenship/
