Lashley: Bills include safeguards

Minister of Legal Affairs and Criminal Justice Michael Lashley is reassuring Barbadians that the new Immigration and Citizenship bills will not open the floodgates, telling the House of Assembly that procedural safeguards are built into the legislation to balance national security with natural justice.

“We don’t want Barbadians to think that we’re opening the floodgates,” Lashley told the House during a short contribution to the debate recently. The Citizenship Bill, he said, carries safeguards: written notice of deprivation, disclosed grounds, and an independent inquiry committee chaired by a legally qualified person.

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Lashley, noted that civil society, political parties and ordinary Barbadians had helped shaped the bills at the committee stage. He said, “that creates a whole atmosphere of transparency and accountability”. He also welcomed a provision requiring the minister to table a register of new citizens in Parliament, likening it to the Housing Act’s requirement on land acquisitions.