Dear Editor,

  Seemingly, there is an inherent yearning residing somewhere within the biological or psychological make-up of humans that’s driving and beckoning us to become better than who we are. We are constantly striving as a species to ax our old, unhealthy, and non-productive habits and practices that are frustratingly inhibiting our forward march and progress. Like a shadow to an object, we are seldomly unaccompanied by the images and forms of what we envision to be our best selves. The change we are desirous of realizing for ourselves keeps us in a never-ending laborious mental march. We are constantly employing rigorous self-discipline to feed essential virtues necessary for reforming ourselves while starving vices that are counter-productive to the change we seek.

  This innate longing that possesses and dwells in us and often commands us to leave our old selves behind and welcome the possibility of being born anew apparently has its origin in man’s fall from grace, and his subsequent odyssey trying to regain paradise lost. We seem unable or rather ill-equipped to erase or undo this impulsive need and powerful will we share to change ourselves and others. But if the possibility of reforming ourselves is an illusion and our mind is tricking us into believing that we are the sole agents of our reformation when in fact we are just passively responding to determinism and fate, then what’s the point of all our mental exertions?

  Who benefits from cleverly persuading us that we are the exclusive initiators and executors of the change we tirelessly seek? Whose agendas, albeit many times a manipulative one, are we serving unaware of the futility of trying to change ourselves in the face of determinism and fate? Who among us can say with any degree of scientific certainty that the possibility of self-change resides exclusively within our domain? Do we enjoy absolute dominion and sovereignty over the all-too-present biological and environmental factors that are constantly influencing the outcomes we are desirous of bringing about?

  The foregoing are some of the many uncertainties we face which have naturally provided a niche for the numerous change movements and their multi-billion-dollar self-help industry. The message that threads through these change movements is that we are the sole most powerful determinants of the spiritual, mental, and material alterations we crave in our lives.

  Many self-change materials purporting to offer road-maps to the change we desperately long for come wrapped in unsuspecting packages lined with carefully written and spoken words filled with pseudo-scientific information. From Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret to Echart Tolle’s The Power of Now and Dwanye Dyer’s podcast we are bombarded with scores of scientifically unverified methods, “new thoughts”, mantras and self-affirmations which excitingly promise self-transformation. But every so often we nevertheless allow ourselves to be duped, succumbing to the superficial messages of these agents of change who are cleverly and subtly more preoccupied with controlling our cognitive maps; what we think. We lazily outsource our thinking to these agents of change, relieving us of the burden to figure things out for ourselves.

  Whenever we fall prey to the persuasive and emotionally rich language of advocates of self-reformation, we fail to critically interrogate what is before us. And usually omitted from the literature of these new thought movements for change are some hard and inflexible truths, one of which is the need for us to first know who we are before attempting to change ourselves. It’s a Sisyphean task to change oneself while being in ignorance of oneself. Self-knowledge is an essential preliminary to self-change. But can we know ourselves? Well, so far, we seem to partially know that we are part reason, part animal, and mostly a collection of particles subject to the laws of chance. So, how then should we embark on our journeys to change ourselves in the face of such conflicting, uncontrollable, and largely unknown aspects of ourselves?

Orlando Patterson

Dear Editor,

  It has been a tough year, and the scientific medical world is telling us that the vaccine for COVID-19 is going to bring us back to as close to normal as possible. This proposed solution poses legal questions and dilemmas. One of legal questions that has been in the news in different countries is “Can an employer force an employee to take the COVID-19 vaccine?”. There is one simple answer to that question in our jurisdiction. That answer is “no”. But depending on circumstances, not taking a COVID-19 vaccine can be of influence on the employment relationship between employee and employer.

  One key factor is, that at the moment, there is no caselaw on this topic. Employment law experts use the existing caselaw in regard to testing by the employer for drug and alcohol or other type of blood testing required by the employer to sketch a legal framework for the COVID-19 vaccine question.

  There are different fundamental rights of the employee involved in regard to compulsory medical tests, or in this case vaccination. The rights involved are the right to private life and the right to inviolability of the body, which are both protected in the Constitution of St. Maarten. The European Convention of the Human Rights, that also applies to St. Maarten, also guarantees the protection of private life. The freedom of religion by the European Convention of the Human Rights and the Constitution of St. Maarten may also play a role if the employee does not want to be vaccinated for religious motives. These rights are not absolute. There are legal criteria on circumstances where these fundamental rights can be infringed on. The criteria are if the infringement has a legitimate purpose, foreseeable, proportional and if the same result cannot be achieved with less stringent measures.

  In the case of drug and alcohol testing at the Hyatt Hotel in Aruba, the Supreme Court ruled in two cases that the immediate dismissals of the employees were lawful. The first case was in the case of an employee that tested positive for drugs and did not want to submit herself to the mandatory drug treatment imposed by Hyatt. As drug treatment is a medical treatment, compulsory drug treatment is an infringement on the right on private life. The second Hyatt case was of an employee that did not want to submit to testing. The higher court in S’Hertogenbosch upheld an immediate dismissal because a firefighter would not submit himself to a safety blood test to establish if he was exposed to lead.

  In these abovementioned cases the employer had a legitimate purpose, the measures were foreseeable, proportional and the same result could not be achieved with less stringent measures. The circumstance of the COVID-19 vaccine is not comparable with the earlier discussed case law, because we are in unprecedented times, and it entails that the employee would have to use a newly-developed vaccine or risk losing his job.

  However, the employer has the legal duty to provide a safe work environment for all his employees. In addition to that, the employer should provide a safe environment for its clients. Furthermore, every time that there is an outbreak of COVID-19 at the business, the business is compromised and frequent absences of personnel due to sickness, quarantine or isolation disturb the organization of the employer.

  Depending on the interest the employer has for employees to be vaccinated (in certain parts of the organization), the employer could request the employee that does not want to be vaccinated to change to a position or work circumstances in which such requirement is not necessary. If such changes are not possible and there is no other solution, the employer may decide to seek termination of the employment agreement. If such circumstances are sufficient to justify termination of the employment agreement is highly dependent on the industry of the employer and all circumstances of the case.

  Clear examples of organizations of which the clients are particularly vulnerable for sickness caused by COVID-19 are hospitals, ambulance personnel, and nursing homes. The employer’s duty to care for these vulnerable clients may require that the personnel must be vaccinated, to be able to do their job without putting the clients at risk.

  Although employers cannot compel employees to get the vaccine, they can motivate employees. Certain companies have decided to offer bonusses to employees that take the COVID-19 vaccine. Others have created internal campaigns or give employees free time to get vaccinated.

  For employers it is important to know that the ordinance regarding the protection of personal data prohibits employers to register and process medical information of employees. Therefore, the employer cannot register if employees are vaccinated or not.

  If an employer wishes to introduce a COVID-19 vaccination policy in his company, it is important to seek (legal) advice or consult an occupational doctor, as this is a complex matter. The expectation is that the (legal) discussion on this matter will keep evolving.

Suhendra T. Leon

By Alex Rosaria
There are times when one single story makes us clearly understand the meaning of evil. This is an account about how a French charity group, supposed to care for child victims of a genocide, were caught moments before boarding a plane with 103 little boys and girls they had kidnapped in order to sell them in France for lots of cash.  Zoë’s Ark was founded in 2005 by a group of French four-wheel-drive community who were lured to charity work by the large sums of money donated for the thousands of victims of the Darfur (Sudan) genocide (2003 – ongoing). Zoë’s Ark was supposed to provide aid to Sudanese orphans usually under the age of five years and look for French families to place these children with. So far so good.  In November 2007 Zoë’s Ark attempts to fly out of Chad (Sudan’s neighbor to the east) with 103 children aged 1-10 to France. The plane was, however, stopped moments before it was to take off after authorities somehow were alerted. It turned out that these children were not from Darfur and neither were they Sudanese. They were Chadians. They were not orphans either, but kidnapped from their families. The members of Zoë’s Ark involved with this scheme are promptly arrested and the children are returned to their loved ones.  In court it becomes clear that some French families paid large sums of money to adopt “the orphans” the French charity had kidnapped. They are sentenced to 8 years hard labor. In a stunning move, Chadian president Idriss Déby (killed this weekend apparently by Chadian rebels) and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy (jailed last month for corruption) reached a deal: the kidnappers are pardoned and sent to France. Clearly a political deal since Idriss Déby earlier had accused the French organization of “selling (the children) to pedophile organizations in Europe, and even perhaps to kill them and sell their organs.” Déby became a favorite of the Élysée until his demise this weekend. As for the main culprits of the kidnapping, they opened a popular café in Cape Town, South Africa. The Big Box Café is especially popular with kids. According to its website, “here you can play different board games, as many as you want.”  ~ Alex David Rosaria (53) is a freelance consultant active in Asia and the Pacific. He is a former Member of Parliament, Minister of Economic Affairs, Undersecretary of Finance and UN Implementation Officer in Africa and Central America. He is from Curaçao and has an MBA from University of Iowa (USA). ~

Dear Editor,

  I write this article on the day I received my last COVID-19 vaccination. Before registering myself for the vaccine via the governmental registration page of Sint Maarten, I tried to read up on the facts about this vaccine. A topic that I found interesting from a professional point of view is if COVID-19 vaccines should be compulsory. Here in this article, I will discuss the legal aspects of a mandatory vaccination. It is important to know though, that at the day I write this article, the government of St. Maarten strongly advises receiving your vaccine, but it remains the free decision of all inhabitants.

  Before I get there, I’ll first explain what compulsory vaccination could entail. Vaccination can directly or indirectly be made compulsory. Direct mandatory vaccination would, for example, be if a healthcare professional accompanied by a police officer would knock on your door, and if you do not wish to open the door, force their way in, grab your arm, put out a needle and jab it forcefully in your arm. Or you could risk getting arrested because being non-vaccinated is turned into a felony. Luckily, this is not what is suggested when people suggest compulsory vaccination, and it is also a bit of a farfetched scenario in a democratic society such as St. Maarten with the rule of law.

  However, certain measures may have as an effect that people’s choices are guided in a certain direction. For example, if by law you have to pay a small but significant fee, when you do not wish to receive vaccine, or if you by law you would be banned from participating in activities such as going to school, to work, to practice your favorite sports or to go out, if you refuse your vaccine, your choice to get the vaccine might not be made on an entirely free basis. When measures put in place, exert a strong pressure to choose for receiving a vaccine, people still might feel pushed into taking the vaccine. This kind of indirect compulsory vaccination – what still is a severe limitation of fundamental rights – is a way less farfetched scenario than the directly compulsory vaccination.

  After all, this COVID-19 pandemic already made us familiar with several severe freedom-restricting measures under the guise of the protection of public health. Think about the lockdown, curfew, the closing of non-essential businesses and wearing mouth-masks in public. Interestingly, these measures, although being severe, (eventually) survived in the Netherlands against several injunction procedures initiated by interest groups who liked these drastic measures to be removed. The court in these cases acknowledged that dramatic times may legitimize drastic matters.

  But times do not even have to be necessarily dire. Many fundamental rights such as the inviolability of the body, right of private life or the freedom of philosophy of life or religion may (and most are) limited by laws supported by just a parliamentary majority. Based on this principle, indirect compulsory vaccination is something what is already out there in several democratic countries and what is debated in many others. The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled, for example, in a case against the Czech Republic that on the one hand compulsory vaccination (for children against contagious childhood diseases such as measles), as an involuntary medical intervention, is an interference of physical integrity and thus it concerns the right to respect for private life.

  On the other hand, the court recognized that the Czech policy – where parents who without good reason do not vaccinate their children are fined and where such non-vaccinated children are not accepted in nursery school – pursued the legitimate aims of protecting health as well as the rights of others. It noted that vaccination protects both those who receive it and also those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons and are therefore reliant on herd immunity for protection against serious contagious diseases.

  Also, the high Dutch Council of State (Raad van State), a few months before said ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, formulated in an advice to the Dutch government – pertaining to questions from the health ministry to make vaccination for children a condition for going to nursery schools – that the protection of public health in a broader sense may be a legitimate goal for compulsory vaccination by law. However, it also emphasized that compulsory vaccination is only an option when it meets the criteria of proportionality and subsidiarity. Meaning that there is no (more) less invasive measure (proportionality) and the measures may not be more invasive than reasonable in the light of the situation (subsidiarity). It therefore reasons that compulsory vaccination should only kick in when the vaccination coverage drops to such a low point that children who cannot (yet) receive vaccination are in inaudible danger.

  The argument of the protection of public health and the proportionality and subsidiarity is also relevant when considering compulsory COVID-19 vaccinations. Professor emeritus Dute, prominent Dutch legal scholar in the field of health law, argued in January of this year in his blog that – in the Netherlands – it was way too early to think about compulsory vaccination for COVID-19 there. I believe that he is right, and that many of his arguments are also relevant for St. Maarten.

  Professor Dute rightfully states that we should overestimate the abilities of the vaccine. After all, what do we so far know about the vaccine so far mostly used by the St. Maarten government, namely Pfizer-Biontech? According to our government, RIVM and WHO, this vaccine is well-tested, and although it may – as most other vaccines – rarely cause serious side-effects, it is considered as very safe. So, according to experts, these vaccines do not pose an unacceptable risk for the (healthy) individual. The vaccine protects adults very well against developing serious COVID-19 related symptoms such as serious lung damage and breathing difficulties that are related to that. Therefore, vaccinations are expected to ease the pressure on the hospitals and intensive care units, what in itself is beneficial to the overall healthcare accessibility. This serves public health. The WHO expects the more people get vaccinated, the more the virus circulation will decrease, which also will then lead to fewer mutations of the virus.

  On the other hand, a large group of the society cannot be vaccinated yet. After all, the vaccine has not yet been tested sufficiently on children below 16. This group can still transmit the virus. What we also do not know yet – since these vaccines, contrary to vaccines for children’s diseases, are relatively new – is how long this vaccine protects us against the virus. More importantly, at this moment we do not yet sufficiently know if vaccinated people are still able to transmit the disease to others. Recent provisional findings from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control are hopeful, though, and suggest that vaccines at least limit the chance of transmission and therefore a relaxation of measures is suggested for them there.

  In short, we know that the vaccine for the individual helps to avoid developing a severe case of COVID-19. Also, there are promising signals that vaccination might also be beneficial for unvaccinated people that surround the vaccinated person. However, we do not yet fully understand how much or how long vaccines protect public health, and therefore if they are really the key to normalcy that we all hope for. As long as there is considerable doubt about how much effect COVID-19 vaccines have on the public health, we have to be careful with making such vaccines mandatory.

  On top of that, a government and legislator thinking about compulsory vaccination have to look to less invasive alternative measures first. Perhaps the public health might also be sufficiently protected by preventive testing with so-called rapid COVID-19 tests?

  The strongest argument, however, why compulsory vaccination at this moment does not yet have to be considered is that voluntary vaccination, in combination with an urgent advice from the government to get vaccinated, seems to be working so far. According to the website of the government, 13,042 persons in St. Maarten on April 22, 2021, already received their first jab and 6,370 were fully vaccinated. This while a month earlier only 5,000 people had received a shot. This looks to me that St. Maarteners on average are willing to get vaccinated when they have the opportunity to do so.

  That is comforting, since compulsory vaccination might break more than it heals. After all, making vaccination compulsory by governmental actions could very well feed rumors, and with that undermine the trust of the public in this new vaccine. People that already have concerns about this vaccine, might be even more daunted to take this vaccine and could prefer to dig their heels in.

  In conclusion. It is preferable if people freely choose to get vaccinated and it is also preferable to persuade doubters with arguments instead of pressuring them. Compulsory vaccination is a heavy-handed solution that should only be considered by the government and legislator if public health is at stake and voluntarily vaccination does not do the trick (anymore) and other solutions such as preventive testing are not an (sufficient) option. Indirect compulsory vaccination against COVID-19, although legally a possibility, at this moment should not be considered yet. For now, it is better to inform all St. Maarteners about the availability of the vaccine, and to honestly inform them about its benefits and side effects.

  This also means that we as citizens all have the great responsibility to inform ourselves with information from renowned sources, so we all can make an informed decision. Because of this, I urge everyone who did not yet get vaccinated to look at all the information that is out there and make up their mind.

Rogier Wouters