Australia’s High Court on Friday disqualified deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and four senators from sitting in Parliament in a unanimous ruling that could cost the government its slender majority in Parliament.
Critics have condemned as outdated the 116-year-old constitutional ban on “a subject or citizen of a foreign power” standing for Parliament in a country where almost half the people are immigrants or have an overseas-born parent. However, the court said the lawmakers’ foreign family ties were knowable.
The seven judges rejected the government’s argument that five of the lawmakers, including three government lawmakers, should be exempt from the ban because they had not voluntarily acquired or retained citizenship of another country.
While the judges said it may be harsh to disqualify Australian-born candidates who had no reasons to believe they were not exclusively Australian, “those facts must always have been knowable.”
The judges also pointed to the “difficulties of proving or disproving a person’s state of mind” and the “regrettable possibility of a want of candor” if ignorance of dual citizenship was recognised as an excuse.
The decision to disqualify Mr. Joyce means a by-election will be held for his electoral district on December 2, the earliest possible date.
