The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE anticipated House of Assembly vote on the Christie administration’s proposed constitutional referendum Bills was postponed yesterday.

National Security Minister and Leader of Government Business in the House Dr Bernard Nottage said the postponement will allow the Constitutional Commission to consult the Bahamas Christian Council and other groups before the Bills are finalised.

He insisted the government wants to avoid returning to the Bills prematurely only to be forced to make additional amendments later.

“We don’t want to have to come back to do the same thing,” he said. “It is in our interest to wait to see the results of ongoing consultation in light of the fact that further recommendations may be made with respect to the Bills.”

It is not clear when the House will vote and pass the Bills or how this will impact the referendum’s proposed November 6 date.

However, Dr Nottage said parliamentarians will next meet on September 3 when the anticipated Gaming Bill is expected to be tabled.

FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis recently shocked the PLP members when he withdrew his party’s support for the constitutional referendum Bills. This prompted the Christie administration to make amendments to its proposed Bills and simplify the four questions voters will be asked.

Since then Dr Minnis has said that he and Prime Minister Perry Christie are once again on the same page as they seek to equalize opportunities for men and women in the Constitution.

He told The Tribune on Sunday that he will reach a position on the government’s proposed Bills once final amendments to them have been made.

The government’s first constitutional Bill would enable a child born outside the Bahamas to a Bahamian mother married to a foreign husband to have automatic Bahamian citizenship at birth. The government has said this change will not operate retroactively.

The government is seeking to grant Bahamian citizenship to all applicants born abroad after July 9, 1973 – and before the law changes – to a Bahamian-born mother and non-Bahamian father, subject to the exceptions and in accordance with procedures already prescribed by law.

The second bill would allow a Bahamian woman who marries a foreign man to secure for him the same access to Bahamian citizenship that a Bahamian man has always enjoyed under the Constitution in relation to his foreign wife. The third bill seeks to remedy the one area of the Bahamas’ Constitution that discriminates against men based on gender. Presently, an unmarried Bahamian father cannot pass his citizenship to a child born to a foreign woman. The Bill would give an unwed Bahamian father the same right to pass citizenship to his child that a Bahamian woman has always had under the Constitution in relation to a child born to her out of wedlock.

The final Bill seeks to end discrimination based on sex. The Bills are now in the committee stage in the House of Assembly.