ULP petitioners ask court to unseat St Vincent prime minister Friday over Canadian citizenship
Closing submissions began in Kingstown on Tuesday in election petitions challenging Prime Minister Godwin Friday and Foreign Affairs Minister Dwight Bramble, who both say they are confident of winning.
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent. Lawyers for two Unity Labour Party (ULP) candidates have asked the High Court to declare them the winners of seats held by Prime Minister Godwin Friday and Foreign Affairs Minister Dwight Bramble, arguing that both men were disqualified from contesting the 2025 general election because they hold Canadian citizenship.
Closing submissions opened on Tuesday before Justice Gerthel Thom and were due to continue on Wednesday. The judge is expected to reserve her decision once arguments end. No date has been given for a ruling.
The petitioners are Luke Browne, who contested East Kingstown against Bramble, and Augustus Carlos Williams, who stood against Friday in the Northern Grenadines. Their lead counsel, Stuart Young SC, asked the court to declare the two ULP candidates duly elected or, failing that, to declare the elections of Friday and Bramble void.
Allegiance argument
The case rests on Section 26 of the constitution, which disqualifies anyone who owes allegiance to a foreign power or state, and on Section 35 of the Representation of the People Act. Young argued that both men became Canadian by naturalisation, a voluntary act, and that the oath taken on becoming a citizen created allegiance to Canada. He also pointed to Friday's use of a Canadian passport.
"Give up your Canadian citizenship. What is so precious in it?" Young asked.
He told the court that evidence from the respondents' expert witness, Professor Hamid Ghany, who testified in late September on Commonwealth citizenship and parliamentary qualification, was of little value.
Respondents confident
Speaking after Tuesday's session, Friday said there was "nothing surprising" in the case against him and that he remained as confident as he had been at the start. He had earlier told the court that leading the country was the greatest honour of his life.
Bramble declined to comment in detail but said he was very confident that he and the prime minister would prevail.
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