Law regulating termination of Parliament-membership is ready

March 11, 2010 4:03 AM

The draft, which regulates the termination of the membership of the Parliament of the future Country Curaçao, is ready.

The law determines that future Parliament-members will cease to be a member if it appears that they were irrevocably sentenced for committing a criminal offence, or sentenced the death penalty or life imprisonment, or a temporary punishment for a period of at least one year.

The termination of the membership of the Parliament has been a tricky issue for some time now. When the draft for the Country Curaçao had been forwarded to the Island Council for the first time, several council-members had insisted that the draft include a relevant stipulation. Both the community and the politics found that the constitution should include a stipulation through which convicted authorities – ministers as well as parliamentarians – could be deposed. After much deliberation, the BC had included in the Constitution that ‘through national regulation, stipulations could be made for the termination of the membership of a member of the Parliament."
For a long time it had not been clear whether the national regulation had been ready or not. However, during a public council meeting – in response to a question from FK council-member Gregory Damoen, Deputy Zita Jesus-Leito (General Affairs, PAR) announced that the law was ready and presented to the Review Advisory Committee (TAC) in the meantime. The consideration of the law includes that ‘it is advisable to suggest rules for termination of the membership of a Parliament-member who had irrevocably been sentenced punishment by the judge on account of a misfeasance or sentenced to detention on account of another criminal offence’.

The membership of the Parliament is terminated if a parliamentarian is irrevocably sentenced by a judicial decision for criminal offence, for death penalty or life imprisonment, or a temporary punishment for a period of at least one year. Regarding the latter, no difference is made between provisional or non-suspended sentences. The Parliament-member in question is obligated to inform the Chairman of the Parliament on the arisen situation, while the Attorney General or the field officer of Justice must inform the Parliament -Chairman on the irrevocability of the sentence.

(Source:National newspaper Amigoe)

10 March 2010