THE HAGUE–The Kingdom Council of Ministers on Friday approved a Kingdom Law proposal for the dispute regulation which for the most part meets the requirements of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten that the regulation would only apply to legal disputes.
The fact that under the current proposal, once it becomes law, only disputes of a legal nature can be handled is the biggest difference from the previous proposal that was drafted when former Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk was still in office.
The previous proposal also incorporated the possibility of handling administrative disputes, differences of opinion between governments of a political decision-taking background. The Dutch Caribbean countries were against this version of the Kingdom Law proposal.
The argument of the Dutch government to have both legal and administrative/policy disputes included in the regulation was that disputes are often not limited to strictly legal matters. But in the opinion of the Dutch Caribbean governments, it is possible to separate legal and administrative conflicts.
Dutch State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops said after Friday’s Kingdom Council of Ministers meeting that he was satisfied with the current law proposal, the contents of which he has discussed with the prime ministers and the governors of Aruba, Curaçao and St. Maarten. The latest law proposal matches the wishes of the four parliaments of the Kingdom as expressed in the Inter-Parliamentary Consultation of the Kingdom IPKO.
Knops said he did not see the new proposal as a loss in the struggle on this issue that has been ongoing within the Kingdom for more than eight years. “Discussions on the dispute regulation have been ongoing for a long time. I don’t have the illusion that a proposal will have the consent of all parties. For me the most important thing is that we have something that works in practice,” he said in an invited comment.
A moment of evaluation is incorporated in the latest law proposal: Dispute Regulation Kingdom Law will be evaluated every five years. Knops could not give a timeframe on when the law will be implemented. “That is hard to predict. I am complying with the wish of the IPKO to come with a proposal before the end of the year.”
Knops said it was now up to the First and Second Chambers of the Dutch Parliament to proceed with the handling of the law proposal. The parliaments of the Dutch Caribbean countries may delegate members to the meetings of the Dutch Parliament when this law proposal is handled.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/82985-kingdom-govt-approves-new-dispute-regulation-proposal
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