Jorien Wuite
PHILIPSBURG--St. Maarten’s Minister Plenipotentiary in The Hague Jorien Wuite, with the support of her Cabinet, has over the past couple of months explored various avenues to contribute to building sustainable capacity in St. Maarten, such as in the field of legislative writing, a field in which there is immense scarcity in the labour market.
Under the coordination of the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary and in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Affairs, cooperation was sought with the Academy of Legislation in The Hague, Netherlands.
The law academy was established in 2001 to promote the quality of legislation of the Dutch Government. The Academy offers a two-year trainee programme for recently-graduated lawyers, but also short courses for civil servants, as well as tailor-made courses.
The idea then arose to create a tailor-made one-year programme for young St. Maarten legal professionals and scholars who have recently completed their programme in the Netherlands.
They will be offered one year of training at the Academy of Legislation where they will be afforded internships in which they will gain experience at a Dutch Ministry.
On completion of the one-year training, they will be offered a contract by the Government of St. Maarten for a minimum term of five years.
The Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Affairs has offered its support for this initiative and has promised to finance short-term technical assistance in the field of legislation to assist the process.
As result of this partnership, the Cabinet has paved the way to ensure that the process of “building back better” through the strengthening of St. Maarten’s legislative capacity can commence. “As a young country in development, it is of paramount importance that the legislative capacity is up to par,” she said.
Initially, the programme was scheduled to start on September 1, 2019, but due to the short time frame this was no longer feasible as, unfortunately, two potential candidates withdrew their interest, the release said.
“Therefore, the focus is on recruiting a number of enthusiastic young St. Maarten legal professionals and recently-graduated students who aspire to work in the field of legislation in St. Maarten. The recruitment process is scheduled to start in November 2019 in order for the selected candidates to start the programme on September 1, 2020.”
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