As were the rulings by the Jamaican courts in the Daryl Vaz-Abe Dabdoub election case, the legitimate possession of, and travelling on a country's passport is no small, inconsequential matter, but one of fundamental import. For, it presumes a compact between the individual and the State and obligations that adhere thereto, especially when that passport is in use.

First, implicit in the possession of the passport is "acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence" to the issuing state. And in travelling on the passport, the state promises, and the citizen expects its protection, to the fullest extent allowable in international law.

The State, therefore, has, or ought to have, a keen interest in who holds its passports and the circumstance of their acquisition and possession. It is not without reason, therefore, that the fraudulent possession and, or, abuse of a country's passport is a serious criminal offence that draws severe penalty.

If the possession of an "ordinary" travel document is of such high consequence - demanding the serious attention of large bureaucracies - we would expect that states would be especially engaged on the issuance and possession of diplomatic passports, the holders of which presume special privilege from the receiving state when they travel.

That appears not to be the case in Jamaica, judging from the recent controversy over the continued possession of such documents by former members of the legislature and the executive, some of whom have been out of office for years. On the face of it, the Jamaican authorities play fast and loose with diplomatic passports.

The public has been made aware of how badly this is managed because of the concerns raised by the People's National Party (PNP) over Mr Vaz's retention of his diplomatic passport, having been ejected from the legislature for being, contrary to the eligibility requirement of the Constitution, under "acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign power".

But the opposition party soon found that it, too, had egg on its face. A year-and a half after demitting office, several of it former ministers, junior ministers and parliamentarians, it turned out, still had not surrendered their diplomatic passports. While the government's revelation embarrassed the PNP, we suspect that the same would pertain to some former ministers and parliamentarians of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party.

Right and decent thing to do

Clearly, every member of the legislature, executive or other branches of Government has a responsibility to surrender his or her diplomatic passport immediately on demitting office. It is the right and decent thing to do. But as it has emerged in this controversy, in most cases, the failure to do so is not out of intent to use these documents. It just wasn't done.

It seems to us, however, that the inescapable obligation for it to happen should fall with government bureaucracy - the foreign ministry, which sanctions diplomatic passports and the Passports, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), which issues them. They ought to have a vested interest, on behalf of the Jamaica state, to ensure that not only are the country's travel documents not abused, but properly accounted for.

In the current situation, both have failed and are deserving of as much criticism of the PNP and its erring members.

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