DUAL CITIZEN REMOVED FROM AUS PARLIAMENT
Katy Gallagher: high court to rule on Labor senator's case as MPs' futures in balance
Gallagher being ruled ineligible likely to lead to byelections in three Labor-held seats and one held by Centre Alliance
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/09/katy-gallagher-high-court-to-rule-on-labor-senators-case-as-mps-futures-in-balance
The high court will rule on Labor senator Katy Gallagher’s eligibility to sit in parliament on Wednesday morning, a decision that is also likely to indirectly decide the fate of four MPs with dual citizenship issues relying on the same defence.
If Gallagher is ruled ineligible the result is likely to trigger resignations leading to byelections in three Labor-held seats (Braddon in Tasmania, Longman in Queensland and Fremantle in Western Australia) and the Centre Alliance’s sole lower house seat of Mayo, in South Australia.
On Tuesday the manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, said if Labor loses Gallagher’s case it would deal with the result “across the board”, suggesting the opposition will accept it as a precedent for its three MPs.
The prospect of a “super Saturday” string of byelections in the seats – all of which are marginal except Fremantle – shapes up as a key pre-election test for Bill Shorten, who must also defend the seat of Perth after frontbench MP Tim Hammond’s resignation.
Gallagher, Justine Keay, Susan Lamb and Josh Wilson of Labor, as well as the Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie, all took steps to renounce their dual British citizenship before the nomination date for the 2016 election.
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All except Lamb were successful but the renunciations were not processed and did not become effective until after the deadline. Lamb remains a dual citizen because the UK home office would not process the application without a copy of her parents’ birth certificate.
Section 44(i) of the constitution disqualifies people who are subjects or citizens of foreign powers from sitting in parliament.
But in the citizenship seven Re Canavan decision, the high court held that an Australian citizen should not be “irremediably prevented by foreign law from participation in representative government” where they have “taken all steps that are reasonably required by the foreign law to renounce his or her citizenship”.