~ The Credentials Crisis – How to solve the newest Constitutional Crisis in St. Maarten ~
by Terrance Rey
The only solution for the incoming members of Parliament, Tamara Leonard and Claude “Chacho” Peterson, is to take the case to court and petition the judge to approve their credentials.
Why will this be necessary?
The current situation is that the ruling coalition of UD and SMCP now has only 6 seats in the Parliament of Sint Maarten while the opposition parties NA and USP together now have 7 seats.
How did this happen?
On the morning of Friday, June 29th, 2018, the House of Parliament was to sit in an urgent plenary public meeting to handle the examination of credentials and admission of members of parliament. The plenary session was to start at 10am with the aforementioned as the sole agenda point. President of Parliament Sarah Wescot-Williams opened the meeting 30 minutes after it should have started and only six members of Parliament were present. Notices of absence with reason were received from members of Parliament Jurendy Doran-York and Rolando Brison, as both MPs were on parliamentary working visits and notices of absence without reason were received from MPs Chrisophe Emmanuel, Silveria Jacobs, Ardwell Irion and William Marlin.
Currrently, the Parliament of Sint Maarten only consists of 13 elected members. A quorum of seven elected members is needed to hold a plenary public meeting. As there were only six elected members of Parliament present, the public meeting could not be held.
In her opening statement, President of Parliament Sarah Wescot-Williams stated that “The purpose of this meeting of Parliament was for the examination of the credentials and admission of Members of Parliament. All documents of Tamara Leonard and Claude Peterson were received and should be examined in a public meeting of Parliament.”
The meeting – then only considered a gathering – was closed and rescheduled for 12pm with the same agenda point. However, before the gathering was closed, MP Theo Heyliger asked the question if this situation had ever happened before and what the ramification would be for not approving the credentials of the new members of Parliament.
President of Parliament Wescot-Williams answered that this situation – as far as her recollection goes – had taken place before. The president of parliament stated that she “will be consulting the MPs and other persons that should be consulted in a situation like this.”
The president of parliament went on to explain that Emil Lee was a minister and he was elected a Member of Parliament and therefore he could hold both positions for a maximum of three months. Now that he has been appointed as minister of Health, Social Affairs and Labor (VSA), he had to relinquish his position as MP.
To replace Emil Lee as MP, the next in line was Perry Geerlings (UD). However, Geerlings was already screened to become minister of Finance; therefore he declined the offer by the Main Voting Bureau to become MP. The next in line was Tamara Leonard (UD). She accepted the nomination and the MVB informed Parliament of her acceptance.
Also resigning as Member of Parliament was Wycliffe Smith, the St. Maarten Christian Party leader and sole elected member for the SMCP. MP Wycliffe Smith was appointed minister of Education, Culture, Youth Affairs and Sports (ECYS). The next in line to replace Smith is Claude Peterson, who also accepted the nomination by the Main Voting Bureau.
The question now is how does Parliament solve this deadlock situation without the opposition getting the chance to call a meeting and giving the government a vote of no confidence?
Yesterday, Friday, June 29th, 2018, was when Parliament had to convene in a public meeting of Parliament to examine and approve the credentials of these two incoming members of Parliament. For that a quorum of 7 elected members was needed. That is a simple majority of the present 13 elected members of Parliament. The UD now only has 6 elected members in Parliament and the NA has 5 and the USP has 2.
These members for the United Democrats (UD) are: Theo Heyliger, Franklin Meyers, Sidarth “Cookie” Bijlani, Chanel Brownbill, Dr. Luc Mercelina and Sarah Wescot-Williams.
The members for the National Alliance (NA) are: Silveria Jacobs, Christophe Emmanuel, Irion Ardwell, Jurendy Doran-York and William Marlin.
The members for the United St. Maarten Party (USP) are: Frans Richardson and Rolando Brison.
To form a quorum, a simple majority of half plus 1 of the 13 current elected members is needed (as two members Emil Lee and Wycliffe Smith have resigned to be appointed ministers in the Leona Marlin-Romeo Cabinet II and therefore there are legally only 13 elected members of Parliament in the Parliament of Sint Maarten) to form a quorum. Without a quorum Parliament cannot examine the credentials and approve the admission of these two new members of Parliament.
The question now is how does Parliament solve this deadlock situation without the opposition getting the chance to call a meeting and giving the government a vote of no confidence?
In studying the Rules of Order, there is no apparent provision for this situation. The rules of order clearly states that a simple majority of half+1 of the elected members of Parliament is needed to approve the credentials of the incoming new members of Parliament.
StMaartenNews.com contacted the chairman of the Central or Main Voting Bureau (MVB), Jason Rogers, for an invited comment on this situation. Chairman Rogers declined to comment on the record. His position is that he cannot render any statement or advice on this situation as this is a political issue and therefore needs to be resolved politically. According to Rogers, the MVB carried out its tasks conform the Electoral Ordinance when it submitted the credentials of the elected persons who accepted the offer to become members of Parliament to replace the members who resigned to take up the posts of ministers. That is the extent of the role of the MVB in this process, according to Rogers.
StMaartenNews.com consulted two former Secretary Generals of the Parliament of Sint Maarten and the consensus is that the ruling majority coalition should have approved the credentials of the new incoming members before the resignation of the two MPs to become ministers became effective by post-dating their resignation to coincide with the approval of the credentials of the two incoming members for a seamless transition – also in close cooperation with the MVB – to allow for the swearing in of new members of Parliament by the Governor. Clearly, the regulations stipulate that the MVP can only take action after a member of parliament has resigned. So the cooperation of the MVB is essential to making this transition a smooth and seamless one.
Surprisingly, the decision to convene this public meeting of Parliament to examine and approve the credentials of the incoming members of Parliament was effectuated by convocation without caucusing with the faction leaders of the opposition parties in order to secure their support for the approval of the credentials for the admission of the incoming members of Parliament.
What is the possible solution for this current situation that Parliament cannot admit the incoming members of Parliament?
First of all, political maturity would entail that members of the opposition would show up for ‘work’ as elected members of parliament. However, politics being politics, one must understand that the game of politics is a matter of give and take and it would have also shown political maturity from the side of the UD/SMCP coalition to approach the opposition faction leaders, or one of the old guards (such as MP William Marlin) or one of the young guns (such as MP Ardwell Irion) to garner their support in this matter. It is politics after all and politics is all about ‘horse trading’, today you help me, tomorrow I help you. Or at the very least, allow the opposition to table their own motion and co-sponsor this in exchange for the presence to form the required quorum.
However, looking into the Constitution and the Electoral Ordinance, we see no leeway, except the way via the court system, the third cornerstone of the Trias Politica in the Constitution of St. Maarten. It happened in Aruba in 1986. The ruling coalition in the Aruban Parliament at the time did not have a quorum as well for the approval of the credentials of the incoming members of Parliament and the MEP would not help them form a quorum. The only solution was for the new members to go to court and the judge approved their credentials based on the requirements as outlined in the Electoral Laws. This way the new members could be sworn in.
Credentials Crisis – How to solve the newest Constitutional Crisis in St. Maarten?
Other than this legal avenue, the only other way to solve this ‘credentials crisis‘ is to create a seamless transition by post-dating the resignations to the day prior to the swearing in of the new members of Parliament after the majority has approved the credentials and the resignation of the resigning members goes into effect. This is the only way legally to avoid the present constitutional crisis we have dubbed the “Credentials Crisis”. The Constitution is clear on the topic of voting: Parliament cannot decide if not by a simple majority. The process to vet the incoming members of Parliament by the MVB is a purely formalistic procedure. However, we don’t expect the chairman of the MVB to waiver on that procedure. So the judge of the Common Court will have to be called on to do the job of Parliament and approve the credentials of Tamara Leonard and Claude Peterson.
Parliament is technically in recess from Friday 29 June 2018, for the rest of the summer until August. The question is, will these two incoming MPs wait until after the summer recess of Parliament to take this legal action and forego one or two months salaries or will they immediately go this route if no support from the opposition parties is forthcoming? Only time will tell. We look forward to the next installment of the next episode in the Credentials Crisis saga. Things could get dramatic if the opposition parties that have the current 7-seat majority in Parliament calls for a meeting with the agenda point to give the government a vote of no confidence. How would this situation play out constitutionally speaking? A very interesting question for our Legal Review Committee.
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Terrance Rey is a former Policy Advisor in the Parliament of Sint Maarten from 2010 to 2012 and is presently the Adjunct Secretary of the Progress Committee Sint Maarten since 2012.
