Bar critical about the authority to give instructions

January 08, 2009 3:43 AM

The Curacao Bar Association has studied the concept of the law regarding the authority to give instructions and the introduction of just one central procurator-general and has sent a judicial advice on this to the State Council for the Kingdom that will soon report on this.

Regarding the authority to give instructions, the Bar establishes that currently the Charter already offers the possibility for the government for the Kingdom to take actions. “That possibility is surrounded with the necessary guarantees. However, any information why the laid down guarantees in the Charter would be no longer needed, is lacking.”
The Bar is of the opinion that same as the Netherlands, the Land Curacao is a constitutional state, and not to a lesser degree. “This means that there must be other, important reasons to justify an authority to give instructions, without the current guarantee laid down in the Charter. After all, it is an offence against the autonomy. It attracts the Bar’s notice that the wish to establish this authority to give instructions is not founded or motivated in any public document.”

Karel Frielink (President of the Bar) says: “The Bar expressly does not comment on the question whether there ought to be an authority to give instructions or not. That is a political question. The Bar is not involved in politics. A cautious reply would be that the authority to give instructions can only be used in very extreme situations, which will probably never happen. It’s also not about whether mistakes will be made in the new Land Curacao, but whether the own self-cleaning capacity will be sufficient as the occasion arises. The Bar is of the opinion that considering the experiences in the last decade, Curacao does have this self-cleaning capacity and it is demonstrable. It is therefore not clear why now
Curacao needs a possibility to take actions, which is surrounded by less procedural guarantees.”

The Bar has also studied the proposition for appointing just one procurator-general. This PG will be at the head of three Public Prosecutors: of Curacao, St. Maarten, and the BES-islands (Bonaire, Saba, and St. Eustatius). The Bar is concerned about the fact that in a system in which one PG will be responsible for three Public Prosecutors, his duty is going to be seriously harmed. “The fear is that this will ultimately go to the expense of the quality of those Public Prosecutors.”

(Source: National newspaper Amigoe)

7 January, 2009