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THE HAGUE – The Dutch Council of State has issued a positive advice about the initiative law that regulates disputes between countries in the kingdom. The draft law was submitted for advice by Aruba’s Minister Plenipotentiary.
The crucial point of the advice is that rulings on disputes do not always have to be binding. The Dutch government would only have to adhere to advice about judicial disputes. If the argument is of a political character the Dutch could still ignore an advice, but only if it presents serious objections.
The obligation to establish a dispute regulation is part of the Kingdom Charter as it was established in October 2010 when Curacao and St. Maarten obtained autonomous status. Aruba had already its status apart since 1986.
The Dutch government has refused to accept such a regulation for the past fifteen years because it did not want to give up its control over the islands.
While the islands wanted advice from the Council of State to be binding, the Dutch objected to it
The current advice seems to be offering an escape hatch to both sides. According to the website dossierkoninkrijksrelaties.nl the only thing that stands in the way of the dispute regulation becoming a reality is political unwell from the Dutch.
“A system of dispute regulation must leave space for political considerations,” the Council writes in its advice.
But who decides which dispute is judicial and which one is political? “That is up to the institution that handles the disputes,” the advice states.
The Council points out that this is nothing new: “Our advisory department already does this with disputes based on the Kingdon law financial supervision. In those cases the kingdom council of ministers cannot diverge from an advice about a judicial dispute; but it can diverge from other advice based on serious grounds.”
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