‘Maintain just one Caribbean Court’
Amigoe
4/11/2006

CURACAO/THE HAGUE – Judges P. de Bruin and P. Lemaire, whom amongst others have been working till mid 2005 as member of the Joint Court of Justice in Aruba, plead for maintaining the Joint Court and against the advice of the established work group by the Aruban minister, who advised in 2003 that Aruba must get an independent Aruban Court of First Instance (GEA). They did this in the Dutch Jurists’ Newsletter (Juristenblad).

The Joint Court had also objected this advice in its report of February 2005. Besides, the advice also counts for the new to be created countries Curacao and St. Maarten. “Due to the small-scale of the communities in question and the patronized patterns that are difficult to repel, the judiciary in the Caribbean will always be more under direct political pressure than in a big community like the case of the Dutch judiciary”, write De Bruin and Lemaire. “An independent administration of justice leads to getting constitutional relations further out of balance compared to the already strong political governmental elite on the islands.” Their experience in Aruba is that strong fundamentals which balance the different power of government is mentioned on paper, but is different in practice.
The Parliament is not engaged enough in their controlling language and is a ‘postmark-Parliament’. The opposition is indeed critical, but powerless. The legislation task is insufficiently performed and in addition, the influence of the government on the small civil service is big. There are also political appointments done in the field of the Public Prosecutor. The government does comply with judicial decisions, “but there is still reason for some concern. They often govern only incidentally just to satisfy the interest of the own supporters, with the consequence that the ones that are not part of that grassroots support have to produce relatively much.” With this De Bruin and Lemaire refer to amongst others the Dutch judges on assignment.