Island Council backs statute -laws

November 24, 2008 5:56 AM

A council majority has approved three concept-statute laws on Friday. These statute laws must in the future regulate the Common Court, the Public Prosecutor, and the Council for Law enforcement. The mutual regulation detention-capacity and the decision-list of the Political Steering committee political changes were also approved during the meeting.

All the decisions were passed with 11 votes in favour and 8 against.  The council members Helmin Wiels (PS) and Nelson Pierre (NPA) were not present for the voting. The debate was in fact a recurrence of several debates on political subjects that took place in the last period and of which many more will follow in the coming period. During the meeting that started around 10:00 on Friday and lasted until 22:00, the following usual slogans and topics came again to the fore: ‘traitors’, ‘the Netherlands does not like us’, ’during the referendum, 92 percent of the people have chosen for remaining part of the Kingdom’, ‘this is not what the people have asked for’, and ‘you cannot always get 100 percent of what you want with negotiations’. 
Also the discussion about looking forward to an autonomous status which is at least the same as that of Aruba came up during a discussion between MAN-leader Charles Cooper and Gimena van der Gen (PNP). A wide range of subjects that have little to do with the agenda items, like the need to lower the fuel prices even further, the appointment policy of the Governing Body (BC), and inspiration that can be drawn from the victory of Barack Obama in the United States, also came up.

But only a handful of council members really went into the agenda items. Aldebert Rooijer (NPA) for example wanted to know whether the Council for Lawenforcement is an instrument of the Netherlands to supervise the judicial chain of the islands. Commissioner Zita Jesus-Leito (General Affairs, PAR) denied that vigorously. She says that this Council was established upon the request of Curacao and St. Maarten to continue guaranteeing the quality of lawenforcement on these islands in the future. 

Urvin Macaay (MAN) was wondering why so many matters that have to do with the autonomy of the Antilles are settled on Kingdom-level via consensus-statute laws and if that doesn’t come down to handing over the autonomy of Curacao. According to the Governing Body (BC), the island hasn’t handed over any of her autonomy, but using her autonomy, it was decided to settle a few of the matters in cooperation with the Netherlands. Jesus-Leito emphasized at the end of the meeting that after the Island Council approves the consensus-statute laws, they will be sent to the Minister Council for the Kingdom. They will afterwards be sent to the State Council for advice, and then finally back to the Island Council for ratification. 

Before the voting started, DP-party leader Norbert George caused a fuss when he said that he will vote in favour of the motions, but only if the coalition will make an approach towards the opposition. According to George, coalition and opposition have no other choice than to sit down and talk in the interest of the island. PAR didn’t accept the proposal though. “Very creative and there is always reason for voting against”, said Jesus-Leito, while Council-member Remco Gomez (PAR) called it ‘blackmail’.  “All he wants to say with this is that he is in favour, but he’s looking for a reason to vote against” what George also did.

Five times approved
The agenda items that were approved on Friday are:
 Decision-list Political Steering Committee Political Changes of October 1 about the organization of the police-organization in the new countries and the financial supervision.
 Statute law Common Court of Justice with duties and authorities of Common Court of Justice.
 Statute law Public Prosecutors Curacao, St. Maarten, and Bonaire, Saba, and St. Eustatius with the Dutch minister of Justice’s authority to give instructions to the local prosecutor-general.
 Statute law Council for the Maintenance of Law and Order for the establishment of a body that will supervise the quality in the judicial chain in Curaçao, St. Maarten, Bonaire, St. Eustatius en Saba.
 Mutual Regulation Detention-capacity with the basic assumption that all countries take care of sufficient detention-capacity in own territory.

(Source: National newspaper Amigoe)

22 November, 2008