NO one should be surprised by the outright rejection that has greeted the so-called apology from Mr Everald Warmington for the crassness and disrespect he levelled at the people of Jamaica through a journalist two weeks ago.

It is clear from the most feeble and cowardly joint statement issued Tuesday evening over the names of Mr Warmington and Dr Alfred Sangster, the president emeritus of the University of Technology (UTech), that Mr Warmington has no intention of taking sole responsibility for his boorish behaviour.

In normal circumstances when human beings err and are given to say they are sorry, they do so on their own, demonstrating their acceptance that they were wrong.

What we have had in the case of Mr Warmington is an apology, first from the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) through its chairman Mr Mike Henry, and now this joint statement sent to the media by Dr Sangster.

Interestingly, Dr Sangster, in the statement, said that he and UTech “recognise that damage has been done to the good name and high standards of the institution”.

He also described Mr Warmington as a distinguished graduate of UTech… who is listed as one of the university’s distinguished alumni.

“The institution does not abandon its alumni, even if they sometimes make mistakes, and as such seeks to promote the principles of reconciliation, forgiveness and commitment to improvement,” said the statement.

The University of Technology, we believe, is to be commended for promoting those principles, as well as for its stated commitment to its alumni.

Given those positions, though, we would have expected UTech, and more specifically Dr Sangster, to have told Mr Warmington that he has a duty to be a man and apologise on his own.

But then again, maybe we are expecting too much from a man who took offence to his act of illegally occupying a seat in the Parliament for over three years being described as unethical. That, however, describes what he did, so too does it characterise his colleague, Mrs Shahine Robinson before she renounced her US citizenship and those who still sit on the Opposition benches in breach of the Constitution.

We have argued in this space before that our legislators need to have a full and frank debate on this issue of dual citizenship and take a decision on it once and for all.

If it is that the country has no problem with parliamentarians holding dual citizenship, then so be it. If, however, we opt to retain the provision of the Constitution barring people with that status from sitting in both Houses, then the legislators could examine the possibility of imposing sanctions for any such breach in the future.

We should not, however, go into another parliamentary election without settling this issue, as it has already cost the county too much money to stage by-elections in order to correct these wrongs. And bear in mind that these are funds that could be better utilised to provide vital services in an economy that is already tight.

Quite frankly, though, we cannot support the idea that someone can participate in the drafting of laws in Jamaica while having the option to live in another country because they have sworn allegiance elsewhere.

There’s no patriotism in that.