Chair lady explains the role of MPs
The Chair Lady of Parliament MP Sarah Wescott Williams, on the program “Peoples Voice” Sunday tried to explain how the Parliamentary Democracy system on St. MARTEN works. The MP was responding to a question posed by the Host of the show, describing the sentiments expressed by members of the public about Parliament. The feeling often communicated by the public about our Parliament is that no one sees or knows what Parliament is doing.
The Chair Lady went back to the Island Council days when Commissioners were the Politicians running the government while at the same time being Island council members. Coming out of that system to a complete new setting since (10-10-2010) has been difficult at best to measure the work of Parliament by members of the public since they are not too familiar with the work load and detailed procedures of the legislative body. MP Wescott Williams admitted that the Legislators do have the responsibility of legislating laws but also bear the responsibility of supervising the work of Government as well.
When explaining some of the difficulties for members of Parliament being able to do their jobs efficiently, the language issue was singled out as significant. The laws are written in the Dutch language and often hinders some MPs from being more in control of their deliberations and knowledge of the legislations because they have failed to read thoroughly the material written in a language in which they are not proficient. The Chair Lady mentioned on two occasions that Motions were unanimously passed in Parliament to make the English language the primary language for St. Maarten. This, the MP says could help to make a difference and give the public a chance to measure what and how the members of parliament are actually doing their job as MPs. During election time, the Judgement is in the hands of the voters to elect their members of Parliament.
The politicians often show more interest in the post of Minister rather than being a member of Parliament, since the job of parliament is more academic and legislative in nature, and require more knowledge of the law procedures for them to function effectively on behalf of the people in parliament. Our system allows the public however, to vote only members of parliament into office, but the ministers are appointed by the majority factions in Parliament. They determine who will be ministers but the work of parliament is very important and parliamentarians should be respected for the job they do which is quite detailed and organized.
Another issue that gets in the way of most legislations and draft legislations reaching the floor of parliament is the many entities (high councils of state) that have to look over these laws before they are approved by parliament and it requires a lot of time to do so. However from the public point of view, when parliament talks about new laws to help the people, and it takes this long before they become a law, in their eyes The Parliament is doing nothing.
