BBA’s citizen by descent concern

PROPOSED EXTENSION of citizenship by descent to grandchildren and great grandchildren of Barbadians is being queried by the Barbados Bar Association (BBA).

Attorney Lynne-Marie Simmons, convenor of the BBA’s law reform and legislation committee, said it would be difficult for such individuals to provide documentation proving that they qualified to be Barbadian citizens.

She also questioned if, in seeking to expand the category of citizen by descent beyond a parent who was born here to include those who were Bajan by registration, the proposed laws were going too far.

Simmons joined BBA president Kaye Williams yesterday in the Senate Chamber to make an oral presentation to the Joint Select Committee (Standing) on Governance and Policy to buttress the Bar’s written submission.

“Currently, it is only a direct descendant, so a child of a Barbadian citizen that can acquire citizenship by descent. The thinking is to expand that to great grandparents. The difficulty that practitioners will have is that you have to prove, from wherever you are claiming it under, that that person was a Barbadian,” Simmons said.

“And you have to prove that by submitting to the [Immigration] Department original birth certificates, if there’s been a name change because of marriage, the original marriage certificate, if the person is divorced and changed the name again. To get those original documents all the way up to a great grandfather is going to prove to be difficult.”

Chair of the Joint Select Committee, St Michael South Central MP Marsha Caddle, said the BBA wanted Government “to potentially remove or reconsider a provision because . . . it may not be straightforward to acquire the documentation”.

“I’m not sure that that is grounds to omit a provision. It may be that as a part of the administration of the legislation that . . . you now have to open up to examine . . . what is the type of documentation you will accept, . . . especially given that there is concurrent work going on in the Archives Department and in all kinds of other areas,” she noted.

“If it is truly through great grandparents and great grandparents, then all . . . that requires me to do is to show that I am the great grandchild of a Barbadian, and to have the evidence to say that.”

Simmons also questioned the extension of citizenship by descent to include individuals who were citizens by registration, not by birth.

“When you are looking at citizenship by descent, it’s commonly pegged to a Barbadian who was born in Barbados, but there seems to be a suggestion that that should be removed so that a Barbadian citizen by registration would be able to pass on citizenship as well, or a Barbadian citizen who has acquired it through marriage, should be able to pass that on as well,” she said. (SC)