Mario Galea, the Malta Member of Parliament who headed the six person Commonwealth Parliamentary Association observer team who visited Cayman during the week of the May general elections, said that the requirements under our Constitution for what qualifies a person for elected membership are too restrictive.

Section 61[f] of the Cayman Islands Constitution Order, 2009, states that a candidate for election is qualified if “in the seven years immediately preceding the date of his or her nomination for election, the number of days on which he or she was absent from the Cayman Islands does not exceed 400”.

Exceptions include if the person’s absence was due to pursuing their education abroad, hospitalisation abroad, overseas duties as a seaman, on an aircraft or generally in the performance of government duties.

Section 61(2)(b) of the Constitution qualifies a person for elected membership in the Legislative Assembly if that person has a close family connection with the Cayman Islands and is a British Overseas Territories citizen. According to the section, the person can qualify to stand for election if they were born outside the Cayman Islands, had at least one parent or grandparent born in the Cayman Islands and who is Caymanian and “who at the date of his her nomination for election possesses no other citizenship save for any right he or she may have to some other citizenship by virtue of his or her birth outside the Cayman Islands”.

This eligibility requirement caused the withdrawal of two candidates and a third had to renounce their US citizenship in order to meet the rules.

The preliminary report from the observers said the required “durations of residence in the Cayman Islands before the nomination appear to be unreasonably limiting the right to stand for elective office”.

The report also noted: “The lack of clarity in the Constitution Order 2009 on what constitutes ‘his or her own act’ led the Elections Office, which has the authority to initially decide on eligibility of candidates, to make different decisions in similar cases. It should be noted that many Caymanians were born outside the Cayman Islands or to parent(s) with other citizenship and therefore either possess or have right to some other citizenship.”

Mr Galea pointed to the strange wording where a person can be disqualified if “he or she is by virtue of his or her own act under and acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power or state”.

Residency requirements prior to the elections are a problem and, “while to a large extent these requirements are reasonable, some of them – namely the required durations of residence in the Cayman Islands before the nomination – appear to be unreasonably limiting the right to stand for elective office,” the report went on to say.

How right and almost prophetic Mr. Galea and his team were.

With high power lawyers from the United Kingdom, including Sir Jeffrey Jowell, QC, the Cayman Islands Government’s former drafting adviser on the Cayman Islands 2009 Constitution Order, appearing for Cayman’s Education Minister, Tara Rivers, legal team. She is fighting a challenge to her eligibility for public office because of the ambiguous wording.

So the real culprit for all this somewhat unpalatable and (to me) unnecessary challenge is not the fault of the person who brought the petition, namely John Gordon Hewitt, husband of fifth place and therefore losing contender for the West Bay seat occupied by Rivers (who came second), but our election rules.

The Hewitts went even further by questioning whether a local judge should hear the petition. This is because the fifth place contender, Velma Powery-Hewitt, was a former member of the court staff; a former police officer, and then served as court bailiff until her retirement earlier this year.

Now the hearing scheduled for Wednesday (17) will be heard before Cayman’s Chief Justice, Anthony Smellie.