PHILIPSBURG--Justice workers submitted a demand letter to interim Minister of Justice Egbert Doran and the Governor of St. Maarten on Monday, saying that if their concerns and requests are not met by January 13, they will proceed with what they called “other measures.”
In a press release on Tuesday, Police Inspector Lyndon Lewis said the issue concerns the placement of Police and Immigration officers in their legal status. Lewis said the justice workers had approached him, someone who has represented many of them in court, seeking his advice on how he could assist them on pushing the Justice organisation forward because, according to them, the management team isn’t doing anything in getting the personnel affairs of the Police Force in order.
“I told them that this is not a Police and Immigration issue but a Justice issue, because the entire Justice Ministry (Customs, Coast Guards, Prison Guards and the administrative workers of those departments) are upside-down in regard to the legal status of every Justice department. I drafted a petition on behalf of my colleagues and assisted them with the signature drive whereby we got 303 signatures. The letter was booked on Monday, at the Cabinet of the Governor and at the Government building for the Minister of Justice,” Lewis said.
In the letter it said, “After St. Maarten had obtained its new status on October 10, 2010, as country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Ministry of Justice was tremendously neglected by its leaders. The transition and placement of the civil servants within the Justice Ministry from their former employer the Netherlands Antilles to country St. Maarten were done without any structure and thus created discrepancy between the different departments within the Justice Ministry and consequently its civil servants.”
In the letter it goes on to say the placement of the civil servants within the Justice Ministry is of crucial importance for the rights and benefits of these civil servants as for the safety and security of the country. “It has been brought to the attention of these civil servants within the Justice Ministry that your Excellency Governor of St. Maarten is no longer signing any National Decree pertaining to placement and/or promotion within the Justice Ministry, because of inconsistency and clarity of the process for the establishment of the Function books.”
“As your Excellency may be aware of the many decisions taken by the Joint Court of Justice, whereby it outlined the (draft) Function books to be applicable, we, civil servants within the Justice Ministry are of the opinion that with this jurisprudence and execution of those decisions a precedent was set,” the letter said.
“We, civil servants within the Justice Ministry have sat by patiently while seven different Ministers of Justice frivolously evaded their responsibility towards the majority of the civil servants within the ministry. It is the duty of the Minister of Justice to have this situation corrected as we, civil servants within the Justice Ministry have had enough and we are requesting you humbly to do so now as you are putting the safety and security of this great nation at risk,” the letter said.
“Minister of Justice, it is your duty to see to it that your Secretary General does his job by ordering his department heads to start the process initiating the draft National Decrees and advices for their subordinates. Because it is known that these department heads are not functioning and are incompetent in executing their duties and blatantly portray favouritism for a selected few.”
It said, “We, civil servants of the Justice Ministry along with many other citizens of this great nation are of the opinion that action is needed to be taken now more than ever, seeing that our country will celebrate its 10th anniversary in the next 10 months, when actually there is nothing to celebrate in truth. It is of utmost importance that the Minister of Justice comply and have this matter settled as we, civil servants of the Justice Ministry are very demotivated and running out of patience. We, civil servants of the Justice Ministry have had enough. We need our rightful placements and we need them now.”
The letter concluded saying, “If we don’t receive any reaction from the side of your Excellency by Monday, January 13, 2020, we will conclude that our request is not honoured and so leaving us with no alternative than to proceed with other measures.”
