William Marlin
Leader of Government
Commissioner of Constitutional Affairs
HOW PREPARED ARE WE FOR 10-10-10?
Almost 10 years ago to the day, the people of St. Maarten voted in a referendum to leave the Netherlands Antilles and become an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
And for the past 10 years, several target dates have been set but not met; promises had been made, but not kept – which caused our people to lose faith in St. Maarten ever becoming a country.
Over the past 10 years we have also met with strong resistance and opposition from several Dutch politicians, who were and are of the opinion that St. Maarten is too small a nation to become a self governing country.
They are of the opinion that we lack the capacity and the human resources to be a self governing country.
So, therefore the question is still asked even today, are we prepared? Are we prepared to become a country? But for the past months, the question is also asked against a different back-drop:
Are we prepared to become country on 10-10-10?
And to answer that question - in the first place to ourselves - but also to the Dutch Government and the Dutch Parliament, we need to pose the question as it relates to different aspects of the preparedness.
Tonight I intend to give you my honest opinion and impression on the different answers to this question.
Are we prepared as a people to become country?
Are we prepared as government?
Are we ready with the needed legislation?
Are we ready as far as the government organization is concerned?
Are we ready as far as needed personnel is concerned?
Are we ready with the different institutions that will be needed to support the governance of St. Maarten?
Are we ready? Our political parties and politicians?
Am I confident that we will become country on 10-10-10? Oh yes I am, because for the first time in 10 years we have a signed agreement with the Dutch Government, the Antillean Government and the Government of Curacao, with the support of the Aruban Government and the Dutch 2nd Chamber also.
How did this agreement come about?
For the past years, target dates had been set, but not met; promises had been made, but not kept.
After I took office exactly one year ago, yesterday, one of the things we made clear to the Dutch Government was that we could not continue setting target dates, we needed a firm agreement on when the constitutional change our people voted for, 10 years ago, would actually go into effect.
But the agreement up to that point was that St. Maarten and Curacao would only become country, after they had complied with all the conditions as set forth in the agreement of Nov. 2006.
That posed a serious problem. Because, what if one of the island territories had complied with all the conditions to become country and the other one not? Would the one become country, while the other island had to wait?
Would it be allowed for one island to keep the other one back? Would we have to maintain the Central Government for that one island? And how long would this process to comply with all the conditions, likely last?
For those reasons, we chose a pragmatic approach to the problem. We reached an agreement on Sept. 30th 2009, with the Dutch Government, that St. Maarten and Curacao would become country on October 10, 2010 (10-10-10).
Comparing becoming country to graduating from college, the 10-10-10 agreement entails, that St. Maarten and Curacao would get their degree as country, even if they didn’t pass for all the courses.
And in exchange for this agreement, we had to give something back in return. The organization of the future country St. Maarten and the different institutions would be vetted (would be tested) and wherever St. Maarten failed the test, we would have to put a Plan of Approach in place for a period of at the least two years, to bring that area of responsibility up to par, in compliance with the agreed upon standards.
1. So, are we as a people prepared for 10-10-10?
Are we ready to take our destiny, our future in our own hands? It is a soul searching question to ourselves.
Individually one or some may have doubts in ones capacity to do that and to govern properly and justly, but the answer to this question can only be found in the referendum of June 23rd, 2000, in which a majority of the people, nearly 70%, said yes to a separate status for St. Maarten, formally described as the wish to become a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
And if we add the votes of those who choose for an independent St. Maarten to this figure, then we can draw only one conclusion: 10 Years ago, the people of St. Maarten were ready for 10-10-10; the people of St. Maarten massively believe that the time is right to take charge of their own community and its future and to claim its rightful place on the world stage, no matter how small that space may seem in the eyes of others.
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2. What are the challenges?
To get a clearer picture of the immense challenges that our island is confronted with it can help to realize how our situation compares to that of Curacao, on the one hand and that of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba on the other.
Curacao has the tremendous advantage that all the Central Government departments, institutions, knowledge, and experience the infrastructure are on Curacao, has been developed only on Curacao, and will remain on Curacao when they become country.
As we all know all sections of the government of the Netherlands Antilles have their main headquarters on Curacao and will remain there, therefore facilitating the smooth transfer of power and authority to that island. The takeover of the debts of primarily Curacao and the central government frees the hands of Curacao to take on the financial consequences of the takeover.
On the other hand the islands of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba find themselves backed by the vast and qualified human resources of, as well as the financially strong and experienced country of the Netherlands that is already investing millions of Euros in the development of the new government system as well as in the social economic aspects of these communities.
St. Maarten on the other hand has to develop almost everything from scratch, from Ground Zero.
The positive effect of the takeover by the Netherlands of the (in the context of the total debt relief negligible) payment arrears of St. Maarten will be undone by the debt burden that St. Maarten will inherit as its part of the debt of the central government that does not qualify for debt relief by the Netherlands.
Given the legal constraints on borrowing and strict rules on budgetary discipline (balanced budgets), the negative effects of the world wide recession on governments’ income, St. Maarten has to take on the challenge of building a new government organization that has to be improved in comparison to the state of affairs of the present central government, acquire the necessary human resources, equip and house the organizations, as well as finance its social and economic development with one “financial hand” tied behind its back.
Where do we stand today?
The New Government organization
St. Maarten has developed a detailed blue print for the new government organization for the country St. Maarten. This organization has been established by the Island council and we are working hard on transforming the organization into this model of the future country St. Maarten.
At present we have a monistic system, whereby persons who are members of the island Council, can at the same time serve as members of the Executive Council. As a matter of fact, the Law prescribes, that at the least three of the five Commissioners must be members of the Island Council.
We now have a total of 11 island Council members and a maximum of five Commissioners.
When we become Country St. Maarten, we will switch to a dualistic system, meaning a total separation of the Legislative Branch of Government, the Parliament and the Executive Branch of Government, the Parliament.
Instead of 11 Island Council Members, we will elect 15 Members of Parliament. And instead of 5 Commissioners, we will have 7 Ministers and a Minister Pleni Potentiary stationed in The Hague.
Ministers cannot at the same time be Members of Parliament. We will no longer have a Lt. Governor, who is Chairman of the Island Council and at the same time Chairman of the Executive Council and also Local Chief of Police.
The Chairman of our Parliament will be a Member of Parliament, and the chairman of the Council of Ministers will be the Prime Minister.
The Council of Ministers will consist of 7 Ministers who will be responsible for the following 7 ministries:
1. General Affairs, the office of the Prime Minister
2. Finance
3. Justice
4. Tourism, Economy, Traffic & Transportation
5. Education, Culture, Youth and Sports
6. National Healthcare, Labor and Social Development
7. Housing, Physical planning and Environment
Furthermore the following independent functioning institutions - The High Councils of State - are important for the way the new government will function in a system of checks and balances:
a. the Council of Advice, whose task it will be to review all laws to be presented to Parliament and any general measures to be taken by the Council of Ministers;
b. the General Audit Chamber, the task of which is to review government finances and financial statements on merits of legality, efficiency and effectiveness;
c. the Ombudsman, whose main task it will be to handle complaints of citizens against government, investigate the proper functioning of government towards its citizens and to challenge laws that might conflict with the constitution for the country St. Maarten;
d. the Social Economic Council in which employers and employees organizations , as well as independent advisors will be represented for participation in debating and reviewing of social-economic measures and policies of government and last but not least;
e. the Constitutional Court that based on initiatives of the Ombudsman will be able to judge whether or not laws established by parliament are in conflict with the highest law of the land: the constitution.
Legislation
In the interest of securing the future status of the island and a solid justice system – a thing of great importance to citizens as well as for doing business on the island – the island has participated in the development and negotiations for the establishing of the following (consensus) kingdom laws:
1. The adaptation of the Charter of the Kingdom (establishing the new status)
2. The Joint Court of Justice for Aruba, Curacao, St. Maarten and the Netherlands for the BES Islands
3. The Public Prosecutor System
4. The Police
5. The Council for Inspection of the Organizations in the Justice Chain
6. The Financial Supervision
7. The establishing of the sea borders between the islands.
In the coming weeks the Draft Constitution as well as 39 Organic Laws will be presented to the Island Council for the establishing thereof.
Just today 5 of the organic laws have been handled in the Central Committee of the Island Council:
1. The Draft Ordinance on the Council of Advice
2. The Draft Ordinance on the General Audit Chamber
3. The Draft Ordinance on the Social Economic Council
4. The Draft Ordinance on the Security Service for Country St. Maarten.
Some of the important and new laws that will be handled are the
- Registration and Financing of Political Parties
- Integrity Promotion of Political Functionaries (financial disclosure)
- The Electoral Law
Presently there are still some 15 Draft Ordinances for Country St. Maarten and General Measures as well as several multilateral regulations in their final stages of being jointly drafted as a result of stipulations in the Consensus Kingdom Laws and in the Final Statement of November 2006.
Independent reviews
The draft legislation of St. Maarten and Curacao for the country status (constitution and organic laws) have all been reviewed by an independent advisory committee and agreements have been reached on the contents and technical aspects of the laws.
The new government organizations of both St. Maarten and Curacao have also been independently reviewed and several recommendations for improvements given.
There, where there are reasons for concern, for the future adequate execution of the tasks of the country, advice has been given to develop plans of approach.
The concerns for St. Maarten as was expected focus primarily on the justice organizations charged with policing and maintaining the law and border controls. For years these organizations have been understaffed and under-equipped, on St. Maarten with little attention for quality development.
Dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles
With the establishing of the law on massive decentralization by the Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles the foundation was laid, making the start of the dismantling of the Central Government and its institutions possible.
On St. Maarten the first sectors to be taken over from the Central Government have been, healthcare and labor and education and youth affairs.
Further transfer of tasks is scheduled for June and July in the area of economic affairs and telecommunication, aviation, meteorology, shipping and maritime tasks.
The transfer of responsibilities will continue eventually encompassing the justice sector where it concerns, police, national detective unit, immigration, customs and such.
With the increased responsibility the workload also increases for the Executive Council and the technical organization. That is why an intensive recruitment campaign is being carried out.
At the same time the establishment of the so called “Duncan law” allows for the expansion of the Executive Council with two Commissioners, from 5 to 7.
One condition to the Duncan Law is that at the least two of the 7 Commissioners cannot at the same time be Members of the Island Council.
At present, the law allows for all 5 Commissioners to be at the same time, Member of the Island Council.
This law also offers the possibility for early elections under the condition that voting must have taken place in the Island Council on the constitution for the country and the constitution must have been adopted by a majority.
The subsequent possibility of disbanding of the Island Council and the calling of early elections would allow St. Maarten to expand the Island Council to 15 members, bringing the numbers on par with the amount stipulated for the Parliament of the country and at the same time discontinuing the practice of these members being a part of the Executive Council (dualistic system).
The newly elected Island Council will then continue as Parliament for Country St. Maarten.
So, 10-10-10! Are we ready? Definitely! The people have been for the past 10 years.
But while we are not 100% ready today with the preparations of all the needed Departments and Institutions, to be able to execute all our responsibilities, we are getting all hands on deck to get the job done!
On the other hand, the job of getting the island ready to become country is a job in progress and will continue to be so, for several years to come.
For whenever we may think we have it all in place, we will find reasons to make changes to our laws to adapt to changed situations or circumstances or we will find new ways to improve on either the organization of government or important institutions that we have established.