That a motion submitted by CDA’s Marcel van Dam in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament to see if the Netherlands could manage St. Maarten’s law enforcement would likely be adopted was already obvious from the fact that the various factions of those who signed it represented a combined 93 of the total 150 seats. In the end a two-thirds majority of 107 gave their support, indicating the level of concern over this issue in The Hague.
The idea is to start discussions with the government in Philipsburg on separating having authority for maintaining law and order from management to give the Netherlands a bigger role in the latter during a period of five years. Exactly how that would work is unclear.
State Secretary of Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops warned that the motion goes against the division of responsibilities within the kingdom and the autonomous status of the Dutch Caribbean country. In his opinion it can thus only be executed based on a consensus regulation.
Some would also argue that in practice influence by the Netherlands on especially St. Maarten’s judicial system is already considerable, with European Dutch judges, attorney- and solicitor-general as well as prosecutors. What’s more, the anti-corruption team TBO is heavily involved in tackling particularly white-collar crime on the island and the Integrity Chamber is being established, while the Royal Marechaussee (military police) has also been quite active with – among other things – border control.
If these entities and other related organisations have problems functioning under the current circumstances due to shortcomings in local management, these should be spelled out and specifically addressed, rather than generalised and used as argument to take over. After all, joint investments are being made in the sector and several recent high-profile cases would seem to suggest the job is pretty well getting done together.
