The Court of Appeal has said in its very detailed reasons for upholding Chief Justice Zaila McCalla's ruling that there should be a by-election in the West Portland constituency, that the "electorate are not to have imposed upon them a person for whom the majority of them did not cast their votes".

In the 82-page judgment, the court said on Friday that there was precedent for arriving at its decision on February 27 and referred to the 1977 election case of Stephen Matron v John Junor, which was decided by the distinguished jurist, retired chief justice Kenneth Smith.

election petition

"I have no hesitation in saying that Smith, C.J., has, in Mattison v Junor, stated the position that applies in Jamaica.

People's National Party candidate, Abe Dabdoub, had filed an election petition after the September 3, 2007, general election, contending that Member of Parliament (MP) Daryl Vaz had dual citizenship and was not entitled to be an MP.

Chief Justice Zaila McCalla heard the election petition and ruled that because Vaz, who had inherited American citizenship from his mother, obtained a United States passport as an adult and travelled on it, he had pledged allegiance to a foreign power.

The chief justice ruled that Vaz was not eligible to sit in Parliament and ordered a by-election.

duly nominated

Dabdoub appealed, saying that the chief justice had erred, because she should have awarded the seat to him, since he was the only duly nominated candidate.

Panton, in his judgment, said that retired Chief Justice Smith in the Mattison v Junor case proceeded to address the question of whether the electors in the Borobridge division, St Ann, had been given due notice that John Junor had been disqualified from being elected as a councillor. Mattison's petition bore no allegation or statement that there had been such a notice and then chief justice concluded that there had not been sufficient notice.