Lindsey Collen Citizenship Constitutional Case Proceeds before the Supreme Court

19.09.2024

Today Lindsey Collen’s Constitutional challenge case was once again before the Supreme Court. She has called on the Supreme Court to strike down the part of the new Citizenship Act that allows the Prime Minister to revoke a citizen’s citizenship without giving a reason and without any appeal. The new law, passed in 2022 reads that the Prime Minister 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 the interest of defence, public safety or public order.” Today, once again, a big group of supporters of the case were present.

Today what happened in the Supreme Court number 3 before judges Chan Kan Cheong and Gunesh-Balaghee, was the representatives of the Prime Minister and the State of Mauritius, respectively, submitted what they called a “Plea” to the “Amended Plaint” submitted a fortnight ago by our lawyers. The judge, however, said that the case was not “starting again” as this implied, and asked them to submit their Plea again in two weeks’ time in the form of their “Amended Plea”. Meanwhile our legal team, represented today by Barrister A. Aumeer, has been given a copy to study.

This means LALIT’s team and our member Lindsey Collen will again be in the Supreme Court on Thursday 3 October. It will then be the 14th time we have been present since the case was put into the Courts in 2022. 

Because the case concerns fundamental human rights, and is also a challenge to the increasingly dictatorial powers of the executive relative to other branches of Government, the lawyers in the case, Antoine Domingue SC, Jean-Claude Bibi and Ayesha Jeewa, are all appearing pro bono.