Make the best of it
together, says Wit
WILLEMSTAD--Caribbean Court of Justice Judge Bob Wit had news for politicians of the Netherlands Antilles: “No island is an island anymore.”
He referred to English poet John Donne, who said 400 years ago: “No man is an island.”
Wit was keynote speaker during the Curaçao Business Association VBC year-end luncheon at Breezes Hotel last Wednesday. His lecture was entitled “The Dutch Kingdom: Partnership or Fata Morgana.”
“We are all in this world and in this Kingdom together and we will have to make the best of it whether we like it or not,” Wit said.
There are many ways to make our lives bearable in the Dutch Kingdom without having to believe in fairy tales, he said. “In a Kingdom under the rule of law, we should not be subjected to the good will or ill will of Dutch politicians or to the incompetence or short-sightedness of our own.”
According to the judge, there are ways to become real partners in our Kingdom. “What are needed on both sides of the Atlantic are an open mind, common sense and a true understanding of one’s own interests and those of others.”
Wit: “The Kingdom – which is, in contradistinction to the Netherlands, a state in international law – itself does not live up to the standards it is supposed to safeguard and preserve. We have arrived at one of the basic problems of our Kingdom.”
The interpretation of what is possible under our Charter and the application of its provisions is all in the hands of politicians, which means that the law that rules our Kingdom relations is the law of the jungle, he said. “That is so because of the fact that there are so many diametrically opposed interests and views on what the Charter entails, and because of the factual and legal inequality of the countries.”
The judge said that as the developments in the Kingdom were pointing in a direction of more and further formal cooperation between the countries and as this development was to a certain extent not unreasonable and probably unavoidable as long as the Antilles formed part of the Kingdom, it would be more and more necessary to recreate the Kingdom as one that truly lived up to its own standards.
“Gaps in the democratic deficit should as far as feasible be bridged, although I do not think that this will change a lot in practice,” he said.
“More, however, is to be expected from introducing the rule of law into our Kingdom. This could be done by introducing a special Chamber in the Council of State or the Supreme Court, or by creating a new Constitutional Court or even an ad hoc Tribunal and by vesting in this body the exclusive power of adjudication in Kingdom matters.”
The door to embracing the rule of law and consequently judicial adjudication at Kingdom level is left open in article 49 of the Charter of the Kingdom which forms a solid legal basis to introduce it, according to Wit. One of the conditions demanded by the mother country that would be a good candidate for judicial review is the idea that the Caribbean countries should have balanced budgets.
Although at first sight this seems to be a very sympathetic and reasonable condition, there is a twist to it that should be confronted. The point is that, while it is possible for Curaçao or St. Maarten to achieve a balanced budget, it cannot be done if they need to keep up certain standards that are also required by the mother country, Wit stated.
