Questions are being raised about Government’s plan to reduce to two years the period in which Barbadian citizenship can be attained.
The Barbados Bar Association (BBA) queried this yesterday, saying that the international “gold standard” was at least five years.
The issue was raised by BBA president Kaye Williams and convenor of its law reform and legislation committee, Lynne-Marie Simmons, during an oral submission to the Joint Select Committee (Standing) on Governance and Policy Matters.
As the committee reconvened in the Senate Chamber to review the draft Immigration Bill, 2025, and Barbados Citizenship Bill, 2025,
Williams asked what was the guiding principle for the proposal to reduce the number of years to acquire citizenship to two years.
“Internationally and in practice, those . . . practitioners would tell us that the gold standard is between five to seven years minimum. In Barbados, it is seven to ten years. What is the guiding thought? What is the reason why we would wish to reduce it to two years?
“When we looked around for Commonwealth nations, island nation states, we could not draw very many similarities. We only found Argentina – their threshold for citizenship is two years – but typically for those in practice, the gold standard is at least five to seven years,” Williams said.
Chair of the Joint Select Committee, Member of Parliament for St Michael South Central Marsha Caddle, asked the BBA representatives: “What is the harm that you imagine from the period that is proposed in the legislation?”
Simmons submitted that “persons must demonstrate . . . a deep and abiding connection with a country that they want to become a citizen of”.
She also stated that comments in the report of the Constitutional Reform Commission showed that citizenship was something that Barbadians at home and in the diaspora “held very sacred”. “When you’re dealing with expanding the categories of citizenship, it has to be done in such a way that it doesn’t create any social disharmony within society. That’s something that was touched on in that report,” the attorney said. “So the general thinking is for somebody to show a real and genuine connection with a country, they need to live there, they need to be integrated
in society, they need to contribute and they need to demonstrate this, which is the current focus of the existing legislation.” Simmons noted that “when you’re going to submit an application for citizenship, you also have to submit . . . basically a story that explains how you’ve integrated into Barbadian society.
“So you write a statement. You tell them what you do, where you work, where you live, if you are involved in any activities within society, so they know that you really want to have a close connection with the country,” she said.
“That is not something that you can say can happen in just two or three years. You get to know all of the differences that we have, how we behave as Barbadians.
“So the thinking was five years is enough time . . . , that’s if you’re married to a Barbadian citizen. The Constitution makes mention of two other periods – seven years if you are a Commonwealth citizen and ten years if you are going to be a naturalised citizen. There is an argument for truncating that period, but I would respectfully submit that two or three years is a little bit too short,” Simmons said. (SC)
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