Lindsey Collen Supreme Court Case Begins in Earnest
06.09.2024
Yesterday in the Supreme Court, LALIT member Lindsey Collen with a group of people supporting her Constitutional challenge against the new Citizenship Act amendment, saw the beginnings of the case itself. It has taken two years to get here. Lindsey’s lawyers had to prove first that she, herself, effectively had what is called “locus standi”, or the right to put such a case. Many legal pundits had predicted that Lindsey would not get past this major hurdle, and in LALIT we were, ourselves, not sure. But, the judges Chan Kan Cheong and Gunesh-Bullaghee listened to the arguments and both sides, and decided that there is locus standi.
The LALIT case, as readers may know, challenges the 2022 amendment to the Citizenship Act which allows the Prime Minister to rescind anyone’s citizenship.
The Amendment reads, unbelievably, that “the Minister may, in his absolute discretion, and without giving any reason, deprive any person of his citizenship of Mauritius.” You might need to read this twice or three times to believe your eyes. The paragraph continues with the vague “condition” under which the Minister can do this: “if he has reliable information” which only he has to judge reliable, “and is satisfied” which only he has to be judge “that it is in the interest of defence, public safety or public order.” The wording of the law is so alarming, when one considers that the very definition of a “country” is only really two things: its people and its territory. A law that claims to give one citizen the absolute power to remove the citizenship of “any person” without giving a reason, sounds, to any lay-person, decidedly chilling. Listening to some of the arguments of the State against our Plaint was also confusing. One argument put forward was that, although the law said the Minister could decide “in his absolute discretion” to deprive someone of their citizenship, the words in the law did not any longer, in this day and age, mean what they may have in the past meant.
So, the Supreme Court challenge begins in earnest.
The case is that the new law is against the Constitution because it is not consistent with clauses that guarantee fundamental rights. Thus, Lindsey’s Plaint against the Prime Minister, the State and the Attorney General to declare the law “void to the extent of such inconsistency”. So, if the challenge succeeds, and is found to be inconsistent with the Constitution, then the new law will not stand – to the extent of its inconsistency.
What happened yesterday in Court Number Three was that our new Plaint was noted, and the State and the Prime Minister have two weeks to submit a new Plea. The Attorney General has maintained his previous Plea. Lindsey Collen will thus be in the Supreme Court on Thursday 19 September. And it will be on that day that the case will be fixed for a hearing.
Every time Lindsey Collen goes to Court for her case, a large group of supporters – from LALIT, as well as from the women’s movement and individual writers and people who find themselves in the same position. In fact, every family in Mauritius lives under the potential threat of the withdrawal of citizenship of a family member, or future family member.
The Supreme Court case is being conducted pro bono by the lawyers Antoine Domingue SC, Barrister Jean-Claude Bibi and Attorney Ayesha Jeewa. Today barrister Abdal Ali Aumeer stood in for Antoine Domingue.
