The Central Committee of the now-again-complete Parliament is meeting today on sending a delegation to the Netherlands for the handling of a draft Kingdom Dispute Regulation by the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament (see related story). The legislatures of the three Dutch Caribbean countries have no vote during the proceedings in The Hague, but plan to jointly lobby their European counterparts not to approve the relevant law proposal submitted by State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops.
According to St. Maarten’s Parliament Chairwoman Sarah Wescot-Williams, the bill is in keeping with neither Article 12A of the Kingdom Charter regarding the basis for such a regulation nor agreements made at periodical Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation IPKO gatherings on the subject.
She called it just an extension of the current situation whereby a plenipotentiary minister of Aruba, Curaçao or St. Maarten can ask the Kingdom Council of Ministers to hold off on a decision if there is a disagreement, but ultimately it goes back to the same council dominated by ministers from the Netherlands.
The latter is also the crux of the problem. Although the charter originally signed in 1954 mentions partners “of equal value,” the vast difference in population, economic and political power between the former coloniser and ex-colonies makes that ideal elusive in practice.
The obvious question would be: what then? Unless a new Dutch cabinet takes over with completely other ideas on the current constitutional relations, chances of establishing a meaningful and effective regulation all parties can accept seem dim at best.
Thankfully there is still a Council of State to which an appeal can be made in case of serious discord. While it too has a lot more European than Caribbean Dutchmen, they are not active politicians (anymore) and generally possess the necessary knowledge and experience to show some maturity rather then follow popular vote trends.
These are on average well-respected, irreproachable persons and St. Maarten’s member Maria van der Sluis-Plantz is no exception. While she and her colleagues from Aruba and Curaçao are greatly outnumbered, they are in a position to have an important calming impact and reason with the others on behalf of the islands.
The Kingdom government may not be obligated to follow all recommendations of the highest advisory body in the land, but when it doesn’t there is at least some explaining to do.
