Philipsburg:--- The Governor of St. Maarten drs. Eugene Holiday in response to a letter sent to him about the political crisis by the Prime Minister of St. Maarten pointed out various inadequacies to Prime Minister Wescot Williams in a letter dated May 16th, 2013. The letter was also carbon copied to the Council of Ministers but the Prime Minister hid the letter from the council and the secretariat.
The letter was hidden from the Council of Ministers even though five of the seven Ministers from the Council of Ministers submitted a counter proposal to the advice of the Prime Minister requesting that the Wescot Williams II Cabinet resign based on two letters that was sent to her stating that three MPs withdrew their support from the Wescot Williams II Cabinet. Governor Holiday informed the Prime Minister that she must abide by the rules of order that governs Parliament because unless Parliament pronounced a decision based on the rules then notes or letters sent by Members of Parliament are not decisions of Parliament. Governor Holiday also indicated to the Prime Minister that she stated in her letter to him that the situation in 2013 is the same as to what took place in 2012 when she submitted the resignation of the Wescot Williams I Cabinet. Governor Holiday in his letter said that the Members of the Wescot Williams II Cabinet did not give her the permission to submit their resignations. Furthermore, Governor Holiday in his letter said that the constitution of St. Maarten provides checks and balances and therefore he advised the Prime Minister to allow the majority in the Council of Ministers to exercise the right given to them in article 59 of the constitution which is to dissolve the Parliament of St. Maarten.
The Governor also denied the Prime Minister her request that he should meet the leaders of the various factions in order to determine if there was a majority to form the III cabinet.
SMN News managed to obtain a copy of the letter that was sent by Governor Holiday to Prime Minister Wescot Williams on May 16th, 2013 which was never submitted to the members of the Council of Ministers. Below is a verbatim translation of the Governor's letter while the official letter in the Dutch language is linked beneath this article.
SMN News further learnt that because the five Ministers were not aware of the actions taken by the Governor, they submitted their resignations because of the threats that many of them and their relatives received from persons supporting the eight Members of Parliament.
In connection with your letter of May 10, 2013 with respect to the political situation that has arisen in our country I inform you as follows:
In your letter you state that you are of the opinion that the present cabinet no longer enjoys the support of the majority in Parliament, and each individual minister is legally bound to tender their resignation. You support your letter based on the opinion that article 33 paragraph two of the Constitution of Sint Maarten, should oblige the cabinet to resign in connection with the present situation namely the letter of 3 MP's wherein they have withdrawn their support from the present cabinet, and the letter of eight MP's in which they declare that they are prepared to form a new cabinet. Article 33, paragraph two, as well as the explanatory notes envision the act of the individual minister concerned in connection with a clear pronouncement of Parliament as such. In this case, at the time of your writing, neither one , the individual act of a Minister, nor the other, a pronouncement by Parliament as such, was the case. In that regard it is important to recognize that there is an important difference between a pronouncement of Parliament as such and a letter from a number of MP's ( whether the majority or not). One can amongst others refer to stipulations in the Constitution and the Rules of Order of Parliament which regulate how Parliament goes about its tasks, such as, that meetings are public and the fact that, and the manner in which deliberations are held, and voting takes place. These stipulations must be closely followed and serve as a guideline in situations where parties cannot reach an agreement.
In your letter you refer along these lines to the procedure followed by you last year around this time with respect to the resignation of your then cabinet. I draw your attention to the following sentence fragment in the decision page of the Council of Ministers (MR070513) which states: " However, the same resignation procedure will be followed by the Prime Minister as was used last year". In this regard I, draw your attention to your letter of May 8, 2012 in which you tendered the resignation of your then cabinet. In that letter you expressly stated that each minister had separately decided to make his position available and that the Council of Ministers had authorized you to do so. In the present situation this is absolutely not the case.
From the above decision page it appears, and you also indicate so in your letter, that a request by five (5) ministers, a majority in the council of Ministers, to handle a proposal to dissolve Parliament by the council of Ministers, according to article 59 of the Constitution, has been deposited, which is being considered by you, the chairperson. At the same time you are of the opinion that the current situation does not justify dissolving Parliament. In this regard it is important to point out that the right to dissolve parliament by Country Decree is a constitutional and autonomous right of government. This right can be seen as the flip side of the no confidence rule.
In the framework of the above I will like to underline that for an adequate functioning of our democratic process it is necessary that space be given to the majority position in the Council of Ministers. Otherwise justice will not be done to the constitutional process.
You end your letter by requesting me to explore, by means of a round of talks with all fractions in Parliament, whether the present composition of Parliament offers the possibility to form a majority, as stated in the letter to the MP's. Taking into consideration the situation which has arisen in the past week I have not been able to follow this request.
Click here to view the letter that was sent to the Prime Minister on May 16th, 2013.
