By Hilbert Haar
Fake news will become the most popular game in town in the run-up to the November 25 elections. National Alliance parliamentarian Jurendy Doran provided an example of fake news during a meeting of parliament on Wednesday, September 25.
Doran played an audio snippet from the Council of Ministers press briefing of the same day, where Finance Minister Perry Geerlings is heard saying that invoking article 59 (the article that gives the government the authority to dissolve parliament) is premature.
You see? Doran said. Even within the government they disagreed about invoking article 59.
But the NA-MP conveniently left out the context that made Geerlings utter these words.
The minister was answering a question from a journalist who wondered why the government had not immediately invoked article 59 after UD-MP Franklin Meyers had declared himself independent and had withdrawn his support for the government.
This did not create a new majority, Geerlings pointed out: “We had a situation with seven against seven and one in the middle.” That did not exclude the possibility that the government would find a majority for its policies – for instance with the support of Meyers or with the (unlikely, but still possible) support from one or more members of the opposition.
In that context Geerlings said that invoking article 59 would have been premature. The situation changed dramatically after UD-MPs Chanel Brownbill and Luc Mercelina left the coalition and from that moment forward, invoking article 59 became obviously opportune.
MP Doran did not exactly lie in parliament, but by leaving out the context he certainly created an impression that did not represent reality.
And then there is of course the motion National Alliance faction leader Silveria Jacobs presented to parliament. That is a motion of no confidence against all ministers with the exception of Chris Wever; it also demands that Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin and Justice Minister Cornelius de Weever leave office immediately.
government does not have to execute a motion
Here is the thing. Motions ask the government to do something – or not to do something, but the government does not have to execute a motion. If the parliament is dissatisfied because the government refuses to execute a motion, it has another weapon it its arsenal: it can send the government home.
In the current situation that is not going to work if you ask me, because the ministers have already made their positions available and the governor has taken their resignation into consideration. There is no way the parliament can send home a government that has already resigned.
So the motion is yet another attempt by the new majority to create confusion and to put together some ammunition it will use in the election campaign.
The motion also demands that the caretaker Council of Ministers “does not enter into any contracts with third parties” – a clear attempt to block the finalizing of the airport reconstruction funding with grants and loans from the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. Curacao-based attorney Karel Frielink writes on his blog: “Parliament cannot give binding instructions, such as, for example, an instruction not to enter into agreements. If parliament wants special powers or more detailed rules for an outgoing government, a national ordinance can be adopted, but only with a minimum of two-thirds of the votes cast.”
Frielink’s observations are based on a book written by L.J.J. Rogier (and edited by Frielink) entitled: Adviezen over de tussentijdse ontbinding van de Staten van Aruba, Curacao en Sint Maarten (Advice about the interim dissolution of the Parliaments of Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten).
Frielink also addresses the question whether the parliament can force an outgoing minister out of office, and this is where the new majority may still have a valid point. Frielink: “It is fair to say that the prevailing view of constitutional doctrine is that if the majority in parliament is of the opinion that a minister should resign immediately, then that minister (also if he or she is already outgoing or ‘demissionair’) should do so. That is different if it were all ministers. After all it must be possible to govern.”
Based on the prevailing constitutional doctrine as presented here by attorney Frielink, Prime Minister Romeo-Marlin and Justice Minister Cornelius de Weever should step down immediately. Whether that will really happen is a different question because, as former Constitutional Affairs Minister Richard Gibson Sr. once told me: “Nothing in constitutional law is written in stone.”
But the motion of no confidence against all ministers with the exception of Chris Wever does not stand a chance, because it is not possible to govern the country with just one minister in office who would then be responsible for all portfolios.
