Did we have it coming? The decision by the Kingdom Council of Ministers to force the Integrity Chamber upon St. Maarten cannot come as a surprise to anybody. Let’s not talk about fair, because that is a kids’ argument. Let’s talk about how we got there and what we could have done to prevent this shoddy mess. In September 2013, the kingdom government gave an instruction to Governor Holiday to investigate the proper and honest functioning of the public administration in St. Maarten. We won’t go into the uproar that followed, but stick to the results. The governor commissioned PriceWaterhouseCoopers…
Author: The Publisher
Douwe Jan Elzinga, professor constitutional law at the National University Groningen examined the value of the reinforced crown appeal (versterkt kroonberoep) in the following article in Binnenlands Bestuur last year. This is his opinion. “In 2010 the Netherlands Antilles were dismantled and the kingdom had four countries: The Netherlands, Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten. Because the number of countries increased, the obligation to arrive at a dispute regulation was added to the Kingdom Charter. So far, this has not become a reality. The most important cause of this is the difference in insight between the Netherlands on one side and…
Dear Editor, The Prime Minister of Country St. Maarten left the shores for a diplomatic encounter with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and the Minister of Kingdom affairs. This is obviously how the editorial might read in the future but as fate has it today it simply factual to say an island territory considered an upstart for trying to determine its own future met with the colonial master to plead for some kind of consideration for their position. While much was expected by some I cautioned that nothing will be achieved for it is ludicrous to expect a colonial…
Collective Preventive Services donated earplugs to the St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation last week. It’s well-intended, no doubt about it, but it is also the world upside down. We all know that Carnival celebrations come with deafening noise levels and we also know that those noise levels are damaging to people’s hearing. So from a public health perspective it makes a lot of sense to limit those sound levels. Protecting people’s health is after all a task given to the government in article 21 of the constitution: “The government takes measures to promote public health.” But the government does not…
Dear Editor, PM Marlin travelled to Holland Tuesday for meetings with Minister Plasterk and others seeking an acceptable resolution to the Integrity Chamber debacle. In a truly sovereign state this would have been a bilateral meeting where both parties would try to meet each other halfway and ultimately produce a joint result to an old unnecessary and bad law. But as has been clear forever even before 10-10-10 the Dutchman is hell bent on having everything his way or else there are and never were negotiations because it always ended up you do as we want or an instruction or…
The story of Ingrid Nadal-Rombley about her autistic son should get the full attention of the government, where Ministers Emil Lee (Public Health) and Silveria Jacobs (Education) are the first in line to take steps to improve the situation. The schools are not equipped for dealing with autism and neither is the health care system; that much is clear from the story. In an ideal world, doctors always come up with the correct diagnosis and education systems have the appropriate facilities for children with special needs. In St. Maarten we only have this in name. The real world story of…
A mother cries out “We need help with autism” GREAT BAY – The heart of a mother who has struggled for years with her son who was diagnosed with autism continues to cry out. Ingrid Nadal-Rombley (see photo) laments the fact that St. Maarten does not have a policy or support groups to assist parents with autistic children. She says that she had little to no support from the state when she first discovered her son had autism. The ordeal cost her, her government job, her stability and peace of mind. It also eventually impacted her family, which consisted of…
How tinted should a car window be? ~ About the Law ~ By Cor Merx, attorney at law I received many requests to write something about a “hot” issue: Tinted Vehicle Window Glasses. I will first give my opinion about tinted windows. My car came with tints straight from the factory. I do not know if it gives 70% of the light that should come in. I remember in 2001 when I came to Sint Maarten I saw a lot of tinted (or dark) vehicle windows. I had never seen that in my life before and innocent as I was…
Prime Minister Marlin is on an important mission to the Netherlands with little hope of success. The Kingdom Council of Ministers is dominated by Dutch ministers and it is hardly likely that more than half of them will turn their backs on their own colleagues to do St. Maarten a favor. Yet, this is a turning point in the endless quest for an Integrity Chamber or at least for a solution that guarantees a serious approach to integrity breaches. The Dutch now want to table their own piece of legislation for the Integrity Chamber and St. Maarten is dead against…
The situation in Curacao is going from bad to worse after the election blooper of the interim cabinet led by Gerrit Schotte’s puppet Gilmar Pisas. Now the already convicted MFK-leader himself is once again in the crosshairs of the justice system with an investigation into the bribery of members of parliament. This does not make Curacao look good and the bad odor is that is rising up from politics over there threatens to rub off on St. Maarten. All this has little to do with neocolonialism or with a perceived Dutch hidden agenda to bring the islands on their knees.…
