Island Council meets on organic laws

August 23, 2010 6:58 AM

PHILIPSBURG--Several organic laws vital in the process to achieve country status for St. Maarten will be tabled by Constitutional Affairs Commissioner William Marlin for approval in the Island Council today.

Island Council meetings are open to the public and are broadcast live from Dr. A.C. Wathey Legislative Hall on radio and cable television.

The Central Committee met for some 5½ hours on Saturday to debate as many laws as possible and sent them on to the Island Council for approval. The draft laws are derived from articles in the constitution of Country St. Maarten, termed the supreme law of laws.

Committee members reviewed and debated draft Rules of Order for the Parliament of Country St. Maarten, for which the first 15 members will be elected in the early Island Council elections on September 17 and sworn in on October 10, the date country-within-the-Dutch-Kingdom status will be attained after a 10-year struggle.

Also debated were the draft law on Campaign Financing for political parties, the draft law on Public Manifestations (gatherings) and the draft law on the Electoral Council that will regulate the Main Voting Bureau, among other items.

Opposition Democratic Party (DP) members proposed some changes to a few of the draft laws, which were agreed to by government. These changes are to be presented with the draft laws to the Island Council as "change notes" today.

The National Alliance (NA)-led government is also expected to submit to members of the Island Council answers in writing to questions posed in the Central Committee meeting prior to the start of today's meeting.

These draft laws, as well as several others still to be presented in the Central Committee and Island Council, must be dealt with as quickly as possible due to the Round Table Conference (RTC) in The Hague on September 9. The conference will vet the readiness of St. Maarten and Curaçao to become countries within the kingdom on 10-10-10.

The Central Committee met on Saturday because of the constricted time period before the RTC and the schedule of committee chairman George Pantophlet, who is also a parliamentarian. He was in Curaçao for the approval of the amendments to the Kingdom Charter that bring St. Maarten as a country into being. Those amendments were approved by the needed two-thirds majority of the Netherlands Antilles Parliament. St. Maarten has three representatives in that Parliament.

The remaining draft laws will go through the review and approval process in the coming days, so St. Maarten can have the some 40 laws in place ahead of the conference in The Hague. The island territory has been facing criticism from members of the Dutch Second Chamber about its readiness and ability to manage its own activities.

Commissioner Marlin is expected to lead the delegation to The Hague to defend St. Maarten's case. Opposition DP leader Sarah Wescot-Williams is also expected to be part of that delegation.

St. Maarten began its struggle to break away from the Netherlands Antilles with a referendum on June 23, 2000, in which the St. Maarten people voted to become a country within the kingdom, like sister Dutch island Aruba.

The constitutional change process has gone through many phases, but is to end on October 10. On that day the country the Netherlands Antilles will cease to exist, St. Maarten and Curaçao will become countries within the kingdom, and Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba will receive the status of Dutch public entities as a bloc called the BES islands.

(Source: The Daily Herald)

23 August, 2010