By StMaartenNews.com Editorial Team
It is not a new observation and we certainly did not come up with it. But it is still useful to think about: countries are not ruled by their government, but by their civil service. Reason enough for the Dutch publication Binnenlands Bestuur to commission Ipsos I&O to conduct a survey among civil servants in the Netherlands to find out what these gatekeepers of democracy really think.
The results are not exactly comforting. Only 30 percent of respondents said they are prepared to serve any government, regardless of political color. That’s down from 36 percent last year, showing a steady erosion in unconditional loyalty. A respondent in the survey even remarked, “If governing comes at the expense of the general interest and the interest of citizens, I am no longer prepared to serve that government. My moral standards supersede serving the government.”
This may sound admirable. But there’s an edge to this narrative. Another 57 percent of civil servants do affirm that it is their duty to carry out political decisions. And perhaps that’s where the balance lies.
But let’s not stop there. We’ve heard from reliable sources that Dutch technocrats have, at times, resisted carrying out damaging policies directed at the Caribbean part of the Kingdom — namely, St. Maarten, Aruba, and Curaçao. In such cases, some civil servants advised — and even pleaded — with their superiors not to implement certain directives. They were ignored, but they stood their moral ground.
Yet a conversation we recently had with an insider inside government adds necessary complexity to this issue. The insider remarked:
“I can agree to 75%, as I’ve experienced Dutch technocrats who didn’t blindly carry out the negative political agenda against SXM, AUA and CUR… I however, didn’t experience any timidity whatsoever, in the extreme – I got civil servants adamant to ensure no change in legislation happened for improvement.”
The key takeaway from that conversation? Civil servants must indeed stand up for law and order. But they must also be willing to facilitate positive change, even when it involves revising outdated or ineffective laws. Otherwise, their power becomes obstructionist rather than principled. In the wrong hands, civil servant “integrity” can be wielded as a political tool to block progress under certain ministers. As the insider warned:
“This kind of news report about civil servants will empower those who are politically motivated to block progress under a particular minister.”
This caution is worth heeding, especially in small jurisdictions like ours where personality politics dominate. Highlighting civil servants’ moral courage is important, but we must also expose when that moral posture becomes an excuse for inertia.
On our island, civil servants are protected by the LMA — the Landsverordening Materieel Ambtenarenrecht. It’s a dense rule book governing salaries, vacation days, and working hours, and yes, it’s notoriously hard to fire a civil servant. Article 44, paragraph 2 of the LMA is clear: “The civil servant must abide by the for his job or behavior required instructions, as established by the competent authority.”
Sounds like a straightforward chain of command, right? Not quite. The LMA does not specify what happens when a civil servant refuses an instruction. There’s no article laying out the consequence of defiance. So the rule is there, but its enforcement is vague.
Let us be clear: civil servants should follow lawful orders. They are, after all, servants of the public. But that obedience must stop at the threshold of unconstitutionality or indecency. You cannot reasonably expect someone to help legalize quadrupling fuel prices, or eliminate judicial checks and balances, without protest. At least, not in a democracy.
That said, defying orders is not without cost. Civil servants have families, homes, and obligations. Standing up against political indecency can come with professional and financial risks. And not everyone can afford to be a martyr.
In the end, public service is a balancing act — a tightrope between obedience and moral duty. The Ipsos survey reminds us of that. But we must not romanticize resistance nor weaponize obedience. We must instead be vigilant in asking: is the civil servant blocking something because it’s wrong — or just because it’s you?
And therein lies the real source of extreme anxiety — for ministers, for civil servants, and for the public they both claim to serve.
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Related article:
Dutch Civil Servants Increasingly Draw the Line on Moral Grounds, Survey Finds
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