The Editor, Sir:

I have heard repeated statements that persons who take official positions in a foreign country automatically lose their US citizenship. This is not my understanding.

In 1967, the American Supreme Court overturned this concept in the case, Afroyim v Rusk, as well as a 1980 case, Vance v Terrazas.

The ruling held that the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment barred the Congress from revoking citizen-ship.

Loss of US citizenship is possible only through fraud in the naturalisation process or by voluntarily relinquishing citizen-ship, as was done by Vaz.

The same is true of Jamaican citizenship; it cannot be lost automatically.

Unlawful action?

My other suggestion is that the Jamaican authorities acted unlawfully when it passed laws barring a Jamaican citizen from employment on the grounds that he is a dual citizen, a status accepted by the laws of the country.

Section 40 of the Constitution applies specifically to parliamentary elections. To use it otherwise is to violate the fundamental rights of citizens as set out in Section 24. This says: "No law shall make any provision which is discriminatory either of itself or in its effect."

The Constitution goes on to say 'discriminatory' means "affording different treatment to different persons attributable only or mainly to their respective descriptions by race, place of origin, political opinions, colour or creed whereby persons of one such description are subjected to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of another such description are not made subject or are accorded privileges or advantages which are not accorded to persons of another such description."

Would some legal luminary care to shed light on whether Danville Walker's rights were infringed?

I am, etc.,

KEN JONES

alllerdyce@hotmail.com