PRESS RELEASE: Sign up NOW to Common Stand Against Immigration Act!

10.11.2022

Five initiating signatories have signed a document to launch a new wave of action against the threats to freedom to marry and live in the country, contained in the 2022 Immigration Act and the amendment to the Citizenship Act. (See below) 

The document has three aspects: It is at the same time a Common Declaration on the threat to residence and citizenship rights, a Common Call for political action on Government and Opposition, and a Common Expression of Support for Lindsey Collen's constitutional challenge that is due to come up for a second session in the Supreme Court on 8 December. 

Please read the document below and if your organization, or you personally, want to sign up, you can do one of the following three things:

1. Send LALIT an e-mail to  lalitmail@intnet.mu with your name spelt as you want it and the petition text underneath, and with a phone number in case verification is needed.

2. Telephone either Alain Ah Vee of LALIT (5 932 9002) or Rajni Lallah of MLF (5 253 4378) and they will make a formal minute of your request, and take down your name as you want it spelt.

3. Send a message via "messenger" on our facebook page "lalit party", again with your name and intention to sign up clearly stated, and a mobile number in case verification is needed.

In the case of an organization you represent, you can, once you have taken a decision, let us know in of the same three ways.

Then you will be part of this action for the restoring of freedom to marry and of proper citizenship for spouses who attain it, and this action will in turn be part of the ongoing broader struggle for more democratic freedoms in Mauritius. Here is the Common Declaration:

 We, the undersigned, hereby declare,

1. That spouses of Mauritians must once again enjoy the right of residence, as was statuted for all spouses from 1983, following the successful challenge to the Immigration Act before the International Committee under the Convention on Political and Civil Rights, and that all families in future be protected from arbitrary decisions that separate family members from each other, 

2. That the Prime Minister must no longer have the power, ceded to him by the Immigration Act 2022, to strip a Mauritian citizen of his or her citizenship and banish them, a clause which reads that the Minister responsible for Home Affairs “may, in his absolute discretion and without giving any reason, deprive any person of his citizenship of Mauritius, if he has reliable information and is satisfied that it is in theinterest of defence, public safety or public order”. This clause produces immediate insecurity in thousands of Mauritian families, and potential insecurity in tens of thousands of Mauritian families,

and,                                                                                                          

we call on the Mauritian Government to introduce a new legal framework to resolve these two issues, 

and we call on all Opposition Parties to include this issue in their public campaigns, 

and we, meanwhile, express by our signature our support for the legal challenge that Lindsey Collen has filed in the Supreme Court calling on the judiciary to declare void those clauses of the Immigration Act 2022 

and the amendment of the Mauritius Citizenship Act that it finds not to be consistent with the Constitution or with natural justice. 

Signatories

Haniff Peerun for All Workers’ Federation/Mauritius Labour Congress

Jane Ragoo for Confederation des Travailleurs des Secteurs Publique et Privé

Rajni Lallah for Muvman Liberasyon Fam

Alain Ah Vee for LALIT

Cassam Uteem Former President of the Republic

 OPEN FOR NEW SIGNATORIES until 30 November, 2022.