Chief Prosecutor Mirjam Mol officially ended her three-year term with the Prosecutor’s Office in St. Maarten on January 1, 2022.
By John van Kerkhof
PHILIPSBURG--Even though she says she is not yet ready to bid farewell to the Prosecutor’s Office OM of St. Maarten and the island itself, Chief Prosecutor Mirjam Mol has reached the end of her three-year term. Those three years have been dominated by, among other things, the COVID-19 crisis. Before starting in another job, she will take six months of unpaid leave.
As per January 1, 2022, Hieke Buist was appointed as St. Maarten’s new Chief Prosecutor. From that date, Mol stayed on for another month. In this transition period, she assisted in getting her successor acquainted with the Prosecutor’s Office and its judicial partners.
“Hieke and I had the entire month to go through a lot of appointments together, so that I could introduce her to other people. She could quietly get to know the Prosecutor’s Office organisation. I think that she is ready to take over now.”
Before coming to St. Maarten, Buist (45) was a prosecutor and team leader in the Dutch city Zwolle. She is experienced in human trafficking and human smuggling investigations and in corruption cases, as well as in investigations into narcotics, among other areas.
Prior to returning to the Netherlands and starting a new job, Mol will be taking six months of unpaid leave.
“That is the perfect opportunity when you are in between jobs to have some time to yourself, to clear your head, to recharge. By the time I arrive in the Netherlands it will be time for a new challenge. So, I really do not know where I will end up yet,” Mol says about her plans for the future.
In the meantime, she and her partner will sail their boat through the Caribbean, after which they will set sail for Europe.
“That will be our first transatlantic crossing. We have never done that before. We find it very exciting to make the crossing with our own boat. I find the prospect of that very quiet crossing very attractive. I think that if I were to board an airplane now and then get off again in the Netherlands in a few hours, I would feel very displaced.”
New and local faces
Mol is not the only one to leave the Prosecutor’s Office this year. “It will be a difficult year for OM St. Maarten in that regard. After the usual three-year rotation, there will be another changing of the guard. In the first year that I was here I had to cope with that too, because then an incredible number of people left. In my experience, I only held job interviews that first year to get the office filled again. In addition, there is of course also a more natural turnover of people who want something different over time, or who are looking for a new challenge.”
Looking back on the past three years is “complicated”, says Mol. “I am still very much concerned with the here and now, and not so much with looking back. However, the Prosecutor’s Office’s has become stronger in the past three years.”
The OM now has a stronger team with more local faces. “That also automatically provides more stability, because the fewer people you get from the Netherlands, the less you are tied to those three-year terms, but we are not there yet. I have achieved something, that development has started, but it still has to go further.”
Those new faces are mainly legal secretaries, or “parketsecretarissen” in Dutch, “but they are competent and ambitious people who may very well develop into prosecutors,” says Mol.
One example is Vidjin Awadhpersad who recently completed his studies and training as part of OM Carib’s OiO training programme. He will be officially appointed as a prosecutor in St. Maarten as of March 1. “This means that one of the positions of the departing prosecutors does not have to be filled with a prosecutor from the Netherlands, because Vidjin can be appointed there,” said Mol.
Relational violence
Mol is also “very pleased” with the developments and the efforts that have been made in the field of relational violence. “Real strides have been made in the approach and thinking about what relational violence entails and how to deal with it. It is fantastic that we were able to receive a subsidy from Resources for Community Resilience R4CR, together with the Probation Service, to invest in mediation but also in training for care providers.”
Mol says that relational violence is a real problem in St. Maarten. “The approach and understanding of what exactly the problem is and how you could deal with it is still very early in its development, but that is precisely why it is also very rewarding to invest in it now and to see that it is catching on and that people find each other, join forces, and work very hard on this together. I think that is really cool to see.”
Corona crisis
The worldwide coronavirus pandemic also made an impact on Mol’s stay in St. Maarten, especially in its early stages. “If you compare that with the measures that were taken in the Netherlands at that time. We were in a complete lockdown here. You were not allowed to leave your house and the supermarkets were closed. That was actually quite brutal. All of a sudden, all our employees were at home, but people were still being arrested, people were in custody, and hearings were scheduled. We were very lucky that we received support from the OM in the Netherlands and that we were able to equip many employees with a laptop, so that they could at least do work from home.”
The corona crisis was also used to get rid of some backlog in old cases, which, however, also led to the Prosecutor’s Office having to dismiss a number of those cases, because it was actually no longer deemed feasible to bring these cases to court after such a long time.
“It was a tough time for everyone, in which some people suffered trauma because their
lives changed drastically during that period. It must also have been very hard on people who had to stay inside, including inmates and prison guards,” says Mol.
“It was shocking that so many people died in the first period of the corona crisis. Nearly everyone who ended up in the hospital died. That was horrible because you did not know what exactly was going on… So many people died. That makes you very insecure about what such a virus means. Fortunately, we know much more now.”
New prison
Three years ago, the construction of a new prison was one of the points of discussion during an introductory interview with Chief Prosecutor Mol. “We are actually still at the same point, aren’t we?” says Mol with a smile, adding that it is “bitter” that convicts are still unable to do their time.
“At the same time, I am always told that the point at which construction of a new prison can begin has never been closer than it is now. I have to make do with what I am told because I am not involved in that process. I am actually just a customer of the Prison Service, but there really seems to be progress and the chances of it actually happening are estimated to be very high.”
That is something to be very happy about, but Mol cautions that a new prison is more than a pile of bricks alone. “Of course, we need the building and the space to be able to detain people, but to be able to detain people properly, we also need sufficient well-trained staff and facilities… That will require a lot of hard work over the next years.”
Mol is hopeful about financial support from the Netherlands for the construction of a prison. “All the time, I had the impression that in the Netherlands the signal was on red. ‘We don’t do anything anymore. You have to do it yourself’, the Dutch said. It seemed as if the Netherlands was hitting St. Maarten with a stick, but now it has really made budgets available. However, at the same time, St. Maarten will also have to pay a lot, and we all know how difficult that is.”
All in all, the departing chief prosecutor is hopeful that the wheels will be put in motion where the construction of a new detention facility is concerned. “In that sense I am now more optimistic than three years ago, even though we are in the same situation outwardly and the frustration is still very great.”
According to Mol, the plan to expand cell capacity in St. Maarten with prison containers from Bonaire, which never got off the ground, was primarily a political move.
“I do not know if that was ever a real alternative. The possibilities were seriously looked into, but those things were built for Bonaire and not for St. Maarten. I have always found it a difficult discussion. It sounds very easy: ‘Don’t we have containers? Then you can put them there, right?’ but it is always about more than just locking people up. Of course, you can open a container and shove someone inside, but that is not yet a humane detention. We want to be a decent country. That includes surveillance and facilities.”
Irrevocable verdicts
Due to the lack of cell capacity, convicts often have to wait a long time before they can serve their sentences. Some of these people turn to the Prosecutor’s Office. “They say, ‘My case has been before the Supreme Court, I want to serve my sentence now. Just tell me when I have to come.’ Then I think: ‘Yes, great, there are no cells.’ I find that difficult to sell. Society also needs to see that a conviction ultimately results in people being locked up.”
Among those who have prison sentences pending over their heads are also a number of (former) politicians. “We are well aware that it would serve as an example to allow those people to serve their sentences,” says Mol.
She says the Prosecutor’s Office is seeking ways to have one or two cells at its disposal for the execution of custodial sentences in cooperation with the prison board and management team.
She says that cell capacity in other countries within the kingdom may also be considered, for example through exchange or specialisation. In this regard, Mol said it would merit to follow the example set by the police forces in the Dutch Caribbean which have formed a College of Chiefs of Police and have pooled specialisms. The same could be done with prison directors, Mol said, with one detention centre focusing on young delinquents and another on female criminals, for example.
“I think that the example set by the police chiefs deserves to be followed more widely, including among the Prosecutor’s Offices. We also discuss how to divide investigations and prosecution and how to assist and help each other. That is actually an old plan by [former Attorney-General – Ed.] Guus Schram, which has been taken off the shelf again.”
Early Release
One possibility to create space in prison is the so-called “Early Conditional Release” (“Vervroegde Voorwaardelijke Invrijheidsstelling”). “It is actually a very unhealthy phenomenon, because it means that people are released much sooner than they should be eligible to,” says Mol, but she assures that all these persons are being released with ankle bracelets, and under certain conditions, including a ban on crimes.
Also, not everybody will be eligible for the scheme. “People must be sentenced and not be released immediately after they have just been sentenced for 18 months.”
This is being looked into together with the Ministry of Justice and the Probation Service. Together with the OM, these entities make a proposal to the minister, who ultimately decides.
Mol will be leaving St. Maarten in the next few months. “It really is a beautiful island. Not if you zoom in, because then you see a lot of things that are not beautiful, but what I like is the variety of the area. It is an island surrounded by the sea, which is beautiful. The hills are fantastic.”
There is still a lot of beautiful nature, Mol says, but what particularly appeals to her is the international character of the island. “I find that very attractive. There are so many nationalities here. That gives a certain vibe, a certain dynamic that really appeals to me.”
