Dear Editor,

Your birthright is the most indelible and fundamental of right attributed to every human being. It is the very basis of your identity.

Under Chapter Two of the Jamaican Constitution individuals born in Jamaica or outside Jamaica to Jamaican parents have an automatic right to Jamaican citizenship.

Applications for Jamaican citizenship are done in different categories [descent, marriage, naturalisation, registration (Commonwealth), and registration (minor)].

If I cannot travel to Jamaica as a dual citizen on my Canadian passport, which clearly states my nationality as a Jamaican (Born in Jamaica) on page one, you are lying to the people. Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country, and to leave the country and return to it. The right includes not only visiting places, but changing the place where the individual resides or works. Such a right is provided in the constitutions of numerous states, and in documents reflecting norms of international law.

For example, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that: “A citizen of a State in which that citizen is present, has the liberty to travel, reside in, and/or work in any part of the State where one pleases, within the limits of respect for the liberty and rights of others, and that a citizen also has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country at any time.”

It lays down measures to protect the rights of children (Article 24) and recognises the right of every citizen to take part in the conduct of public affairs, to vote, and to be elected, and to have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his country (Article 25). It provides that all persons are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection of the law (Article 26).”

Silbert Barrett

net_sbarrett@hotmail.com