IN being posted abroad on duty for one’s government, does someone forfeit his residency status of his/her country?  That is the issue that is being debated in Trinidad over the selection of a judge for President and it has relevance everywhere, including Guyana. Should residency be required for an official appointment?

The ruling PP coalition in T&T selected Judge Anthony Carmona as President. The nomination is mired in controversy. The constitution stipulates that the candidate must be resident for 10 years preceding the appointment. The Judge was posted to Europe between 2001 and on ICC duty. According to international norms, the judge did not surrender his residency of T&T and as such met the criteria of continuous residency as required in the T&T constitution. According to international standards (residency rule is flexible) when a person is posted abroad on behalf of his or her government or for an international government position, he or she retains residency of the nation of birth. Guyanese career officers, for example, posted abroad, retain their residency and are allowed to vote in elections unlike say Guyanese who choose to live abroad and in so doing forfeit residency and voting rights.
It should be noted that T&T is not the only country that has a residency requirement for nominees for President.  The U.S., for example, has a 14-year requirement in addition to the criteria of jus sanguine (of blood or of being born in the U.S.).  Years served in overseas posting on behalf of the U.S. government or an international agency abroad (as an American delegate) or as a soldier overseas counts towards the 14-year residency requirement.
Incidentally, being born overseas to parents who are posted overseas on duty for the U.S. government also qualifies one as jus sanguine. Senator John McCain, for example, was born overseas while his mother accompanied his father for duties in the navy in a foreign mission; McCain ran for President in 2008 against Obama.
President Bill Clinton studied abroad (at Oxford on a one-year Rhodes scholarship) and it is not clear whether that period of time would have qualified as residency had he been short of the 14- year stipulation.
But to all intents and purposes, his home had remained the U.S., and he
returned home after his scholarship and ran for office as a governor.
If such a controversy had arisen, the Supreme Court would have had to
make a determination and would have applied the flexibility rule.
The issue did not arise.
The fact that Carmona was posted overseas as a representative of T&T does not make him a non-resident of T&T. Had he worked in Europe on private business those years would not count towards the 10-year residency.
Judge Carmona retained his home and family etc. in Trinidad.  He was properly domiciled in Trinidad. He did not go abroad on his own accord, but because of his nomination by the government to be a representative of T&T (and as CARICOM, OAS rep.  So his years as an ICC judge count toward the 10-year residency as he did not abdicate his domicile.  Anyone who studies international relations (and I did my doctoral studies in IR) would be familiar with the rule. I should also note that for U.S. green card purposes, card holders must meet continuous residency requirement or forfeit their cards. But continuous residency does not mean the person cannot live abroad for brief periods.  According to U.S. court and immigration requirements,
residency meant that to all intents and purposes, the individual considers the U.S. as his or her permanent domicile and has certain obligations such as paying utility bills, rents, taxes, etc. and has credit cards, dependants etc. in the U.S.
If Carmona’s nomination were challenged in court, the judges would render him eligible, applying a flexible residency interpretation of the legal concept.
At any rate, Carmona’s eligibility only becomes an issue if there is some opposition to the nomination filed with the court or with the Speaker’s Office that is responsible for overseeing the election of the President.  And so far, there has been none.