POSITION PAPER ON GOVERNMENT’S GREEN PAPER ON LONG TERM RESIDENTS, 2000

Although the Green Paper suggests that the Government has not solidified its position with respect to Long Term Residents, the Paper does state that the Government has decided “not to reintroduce the discretionary grant of Bermudian status until necessitated by any change in Bermuda’s constitutional status.”  The Paper goes on to state that “The Government is not prepared to relax the Bermudian status law to allow all those who arrived in Bermuda, before 1 August 1989, to obtain Bermudian status.”

The Coalition does not support the PRC and calls for Bermuda Status for all Long Term Residents in Bermuda on July 31, 1989 (the qualifying date).

Some of the issues raised for Long Term Residents who hang tenuously to Bermuda as their domicile, is

·         Whether the concept of Permanent Residency Certificate (PRC) proposed by the present Government sufficiently reward the long-term commitment and contribution to this community of LTR’s most productive years and

·         Whether the concept of “inalienable rights” as defined by international law and as practiced most commonly by the international community is satisfied by the notion of granting PRC’s only to LTR’s (instead of Bermuda Status) given that the PRC would preclude any possibility of LTR’s or their children receiving full “citizenship” at least for the foreseeable future.

Particularly unsatisfactory is Government’s linking of  “discretionary grant of Bermudian status” to “any change in Bermuda’s constitutional status.”

Causing considerable difficulty for in assessing Government’s position with respect to LTR’s is how poorly-defined the PRC is.  Essentially, the Government is asking LTR’s to give up any hope of citizenship in exchange for a PRC with yet-to-be-determined rights and privileges.

As best as we cant determine, the PRC would

·         be granted to LTR’s  who arrived in Bermuda before 1 August 1989 as long as he/she fulfils  “remaining conditions;”

·         be granted to LTR’s with 20 years’ residence if they had arrived in Bermuda before 1 August 1989;

·         allow a person to count any period of 12 months or more of continuous ordinary residence towards an aggregate sum of 20 years;

·         replace the requirement of having worked in Bermuda for a certain number of years with a minimum age requirement of 40 years.

The PRC would not allow LTR’s to purchase properties (homes) unless these fell within the top 20% of the housing market or are designated condominium developments currently open to non-Bermudians.  Thus home ownership, which is universally accepted as a basic tenant in the “pursuit of happiness,” would be out of reach for all but the wealthiest LTR’s. 

In summary, it is the Coalition’s view that the poorly-defined PRC does little more than eliminate the periodic nuisance of acquiring work permits.  It grants little beyond this in terms of additional rights to Long Term Residents and is structured so as to permanently relegate LTR’s to the position of second-class non-citizens.