THE HAGUE - The Dutch Kingdom needs a dispute settlement, despite the withdrawal of the proposal for the Kingdom Disputes Act. Undersecretary Raymond Knops of Kingdom Relations agrees with the Interparliamentary Kingdom Consultation (IPKO) on this point.
According to Knops, it has not been promised in so many words that rulings on disputes in the Kingdom should be binding.
Recently Knops responded in an extensive letter to the Dutch Parliament on the appointment list of the Ipko held on Bonaire in August and on questions that were asked. The Ipko agreed on the dispute settlement to await a proposal from the Caribbean countries now that the bill has been withdrawn. This happened after the Parliaments of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten had raised objections to the proposal.
The government is aware that a dispute settlement arrangement was agreed upon in 2010 when the new constitutional structure was introduced. That applies 'without prejudice', writes Knops. He is prepared to await a new bill from the Caribbean countries, but warns the governments that it is important that 'support is sought for the relevant draft at a timely stage'.
In response to the Ipko, the specific question was asked whether the then minister Ernst Hirsch-Ballin had declared prior to 10 October 2010 that the dispute settlement should be binding. To this, Knops gives a somewhat evasive answer, which talks about settling disputes, but in which the word 'binding' is missing:
"In 2010, in the memorandum in response to the Reports of the Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, the then minister expressed the intention to set up an independent body that can settle legal disputes about the interpretation of the Constitution."
In the run-up to the now withdrawn bill, Hirsch-Ballin showed a strong support for a constitutional court in 2019. In the absence of a constitutional court, he considered the proposed bill to be legally deficient and argued for a constitutional judicial department within the Council of State, which therefore goes a lot further than the Kingdom Disputes Division proposed at the time.