PHILIPSBURG--Since January 1, 2015, St. Maarten has had a new Chief Prosecutor. Ton Maan, a man with a wealth of experience, particularly in tackling serious organised crime, but also in restructuring regional prosecutor's offices in the Netherlands, Maan is looking forward to the challenge that awaits him in St. Maarten.

 

"I had this eternal young boy's dream of being a police officer," Maan, originally from Rotterdam, tells of his route to becoming Chief Prosecutor. "But when it became clear I was capable of going to university, I did. I chose law, which was in the same direction. Whilst at university I was convinced I wanted to be a judge. After completing university I enrolled in the six-year Judges Training Programme.

 

In 1982 he became a "Rechterlijke Ambtenaar in Opleiding (RAIO)," a legal civil servant in training. The training consisted of three two-year placements: two years at a court of law, two years at a Prosecutor's Office and a two-year traineeship. One month at the Public Prosecutor's Office is all it took to change Maan's future perspective.

 

"I see the difference between a judge and a prosecutor as someone who legally reviews cases, and someone who builds cases. I enjoyed the dynamics with the police, the investigators in order to build the best possible case," he clarifies.

 

In 1988 Maan finished his RAIO training and became a fully-fledged prosecutor. "You could say I am a prosecutor in heart and soul," says Maan, who is still brimming with enthusiasm over the opportunities his job has to offer.

 

He specialised in serious organised crime. "I enjoyed getting involved in heavy, long-running cases," says Maan who first worked in Utrecht, then in Amsterdam. "I worked in serious organised crime for many years, to the highest levels. I also worked together a lot with the intelligence service."

Development

 

There came a time, however, when Maan was ready to continue his development. "At a certain time I became interested in approaching work from a different angle; from a leadership perspective," Maan says. He was promoted and became team leader at the National Prosecutor's Office in his home town of Rotterdam.

 

From there he moved on to the "East" division as deputy; based in Arnhem, where, together with three colleagues, his task was to reorganise four regional Prosecutor's Offices and merge them into a single organisation. "I learned a lot," Maan says. "We had to bring 600 people together, get them to work together in a single organisation. It was interesting, but very different to what I did before. I enjoyed it, but crime continued to pull," he says.

 

The opportunity to get more involved in tackling crime again came recently, when Maan was asked by the Chairman's College of Prosecutors General to take up the post of Chief Prosecutor in St. Maarten. This presented him the combination of tackling serious crime and reorganising a Prosecutor's Office where many changes were scheduled.

 

St. Maarten

Maan and his wife visited St. Maarten a couple of times to see what it was like. "We had been to Curacao and Aruba a few times, and we felt that St. Maarten had a more Caribbean feel. The atmosphere was very different to Curacao and Aruba. St. Maarten is much greener and has more diversity in its cultural mix."

 

Maan's family supported his decision to come. He was joined by his wife, but the seven children they have between them, aged from 14 to 28, stayed behind in the Netherlands. "The development and happiness of the children was an important consideration," says Maan. "However technology makes the distance smaller. Last week I showed one of the children via Facetime what the cat was doing. That makes a big difference," he adds.

 

Plans for St. Maarten

What are Maan's plans as a Chief Prosecutor in St. Maarten? "The best way to describe the Prosecutor's Office as I found it was a pyramid upside-down," Maan explained. "There was a small, vulnerable administrative base, a larger group of paralegal workers, and an even bigger group of prosecutors. I saw a necessity to build on the administrative support, so that the prosecutors spend less time doing administrative work," he says.

 

The Prosecutor's Office is currently in the process of recruiting two administrative workers. "We've received some 30 applications already," Maan says proudly. With the strengthening of the administrative base, the prosecutors will spend less time on administrative work, enabling them to work more effectively on their actual case load.

 

Maan's aim is to give much more attention to victims of crime, and to ensure that sentences are executed within a reasonable time frame. "To achieve this, we need to work closely together and make agreements with our partners in the justice chain," he says. "Instead of waiting until a victim-support-agency has been established, we can just start focusing more on victims as an organisation," he says.

 

Victim Support

The Prosecutor's Office currently has walk-in consultations on the last Thursday of each month, between 10:00 am and 12:00 pm. "It attracts a lot of people with a wide variety of questions. A lot of these questions would disappear if victim support were better," he says.

 

"People do tend to believe that the Prosecutors Office is in charge of everything. Recently, for instance, a lawyer had a question about care for a person detained in prison. But the Prosecutors Office can't take everything. Chain partners have to take responsibility for their own departments," he explains.

 

However, the Prosecutor's Office does liaise with partners to answer people's questions. "People often ask about the status of a police investigation. We do go and find out for them," Maan adds.

 

Execution of penalties

Execution of sentences and penalties is another important matter for improvement. "With regards to the execution of sentences and fines, the process needs to be simplified. We will be investing in this a lot over the coming year. We will work harder to ensure penalties are enforced, but we also aim to make it easier for them to be carried out," Maan believes.

 

One of the plans already in progress is simplifying payments of fines, with plans to create a number of points where payments can easily be made, and an information-sharing programme so the police have easy access to details about who has not paid their fine.

Ideas

 

"We can all go and sit and wait for each other to take the first step, and for others to cooperate. But we can also start taking action to move into the right direction, by generating ideas. For instance look at the recent developments in Youth Justice. Maan says: "The establishment of the Miss Lalie Centre was a big leap forward. Now how do we continue this process?"

 

An idea that Maan has come up with is to have a single location with different desks where people who have been involved with the law can report to. "Like a safety house, where all partners are represented, with different desks; a desk to go and pay fines, a desk to go see a probation officer, etc. There are plenty of ideas, we just need to get started," he says.

 

Clarity

Maan intends for changes to start taking place immediately, with more clarity for the public to become visible during this year. "Our work processes will be adjusted so that there will be more clarity for people. We aim to be more transparent to the public, for instance through the media. We also aim to make clear and concise agreements with partners, for instance, with the court of first instance. If the administrative processes are more streamlined, cases can be finalised sooner with less waiting time for all involved.

 

A lot will also change due to the re-enforcement in dealing with serious organised crime and corruption. "If more law enforcement officers are sent from the Netherlands to St. Maarten, it stands to reason that more cases will come to the attention of the Prosecutor's Office," Maan says.

"Politically there are a lot of discussions going on about how to organise and integrate these resources into the existing structure, and how to effectively combat serious crime and corruption. The Prosecutor's Office works within the structure that is available in the country St. Maarten. Sometimes, that takes a bit of manoeuvring. It can be a challenge," says Maan.

 

Many citizens still perceive the Prosecutor's Office as a Dutch organisation. "A lot of people still believe those who work here came for the salary and the nice weather," says Maan. "But I never really hear of local lawyers wanting to become prosecutors. I don't really understand why local people aren't queuing up to join us. We would like to recruit more local people," Maan says. "In the end, we are here to support St. Maarten."

 

The Daily Herald