Very unfortunate that St. Maarten
is put in a negative light, says Sarah
PHILIPSBURG--Constitutional Affairs Commissioner Sarah Wescot-Williams believes it’s “very unfortunate” for the Dutch Second Chamber to have put the island in a negative light, considering that St. Maarten has persisted in getting the constitutional change process moving.
“I’m not threatening nor fighting with the Dutch Parliament, but it’s not the call of the Second Chamber to decide the future of St. Maarten. They have something to say and we chose to remain in the Kingdom, but it’s not their call that St. Maarten should become something a la the BES islands. The people voted for country status and that’s the call that should be heeded,” Wescot-William said.
She was reacting to the motion passed in the Dutch Second Chamber expressing that St. Maarten would not attain country status until the island had complied with the conditions of adequate maintenance of law and order and administration of justice as set forward in the November 2, 2006, final accord.
According to her, “it sounds politically nice to say that it’s St. Maarten’s responsibility,” but at the same time she challenged anyone to point out exactly where St. Maarten had defaulted and not shown willingness to work along.
“The motion seems superfluous, because that is what the agreement of November 2, 2006, was about. Parties have agreed to jointly execute tasks with the clear objective in mind that the entities would get their new status, country within the Kingdom in the case of St. Maarten.”
The Commissioner stressed again that the Dutch Government should be very clear in terms of what it was requesting of St. Maarten.
She once more made clear that the Consensus Kingdom Law on a joint court of justice, police and prosecutor’s office had been accepted by all parties, as well as the Consensus Kingdom Resolution on financial supervision and the Council for the Maintenance of Law and Order.
She said furthermore that the Final Accord stated that the police organisation must be drastically improved before the new structure for the island went into in effect. In this regard the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao and St. Maarten will jointly establish a plan of activities, including conditions for police forces, and what they should minimally comply with.
Also the activities of the Netherlands Antilles Safety Plan will be looked at in that light and adjusted where necessary. The Netherlands will be even more intensively involved with the necessary improvements.
It was based on this article in the final Accord that St. Maarten on October 1 not only agreed on the Consensus Kingdom Law on police, but also agreed to establish three workgroups responsible for working on the improvement of the individual police organisations, said Wescot-Williams.
St. Maarten had even made a case that the workgroup dealing with St. Maarten’s police organisation need to be chaired by someone from St. Maarten, she said. “The original idea was there would be one joint chairperson for these committees. St. Maarten objected, because it’s clear that when the island doesn’t have a person taking the lead for St. Maarten in these activities the island is overlooked and left behind.”
Meanwhile, the Commissioner said, the workgroups have been formed and Richard Gibson has been put in charge of improving the police organisation for St. Maarten.
However, despite all these actions taken, Wescot-Williams pointed out that Justice Minister David Dick was still the one in the driver’s seat as far as Justice was concerned. “We can jump high, we can jump low, as that is concerned.”
In this regard she referred to a statement by Dick that while he could take initiatives for investments in St. Maarten he couldn’t entertain any contractual responsibilities.
“Then the question is: who at this moment can? Dick has not passed on this responsibility to Gibson nor the Lt. Governor, not that I know. Unless the Minister transfers the responsibility for Justice and areas of Justice, it remains with him. That is why we objected to the constant delay and postponements of the meeting on the phased dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles,” the Commissioner said.
