The Public Prosecutors
Since 2010, the Public Prosecutor’s Office Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba (BES) is charged with, as it is called, the criminal enforcement of the rule of law on Saba and St. Eustatius.
The Chief Public Prosecutor Henry Hambeukers is responsible for the way that happens. But in practice, the Prosecutor, Marleen Overmeer, has for the past 5 years handled criminal cases of both islands. Recently, her work on Saba and St. Eustatius was taken over by two Prosecutors. These are Antoinette Doedens and Henk Jan Starrenburg.
This week Mrs. Doedens and Mr. Starrenburg visited the islands along with the Chief Public Prosecutor in order to get acquainted with the police teams, the Island Governors and both communities. They will now regularly be on the islands.
New manner of working
In recent years, the number of criminal investigations on the three islands has increased sharply in number and weight. In every organization, if the workload increases, you have to look at how you can organize this as well as possible.
The Public Prosecutor Office BES has evaluated how the work for each of the islands can be optimally implemented. Optimal in the sense that not only the criminal matters are handled as well and as quickly as possible, but also that it to be as open and accessible as possible to citizens on the islands. This way people with questions, complaints and for contact about a criminal case can get answers as simple and as best as possible.
Dealing with criminal cases
Most of the 12 employees of the Public Prosecutor’s Office BES are working on Bonaire. At that location most of the people and facilities are therefore at its best so that dossiers can be finalized as fast as possible. That establishment is further professionalized through increased automation and additional staff.
Because of that additional professional set-up, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is able, as small office in terms of size, to work as efficiently as possible. It is therefore also possible to handle sudden extra workload due to mayor and heavy investigations, for example homicide or other complicated investigations, as well as possible.
The Office of the Public Prosecutor is convinced that everyone on each of the Islands that has something to do with this office, will have contact with a more efficient organization and therefore can be helped better and faster, whether they are suspects, victims or complainants. The Office of the Public Prosecutor is of the view that the speed of action is extra important in small communities.
Of course, the sessions of the Court on Saba and St. Eustatius itself will continue to take place. If an investigation or a specific project requires this, of course employees of the Office of the Public Prosecutor will come to the Windward Islands.
The contact with citizens
The Chief Public Prosecutor finds that housing the staff mainly on Bonaire must not lead to people on the other islands having to make too much effort to get in touch with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in order to also be helped. The Island Governors and the police were promised that this would be prevented.
Therefore a front office will be opened on both islands. The front office will be staffed by a permanent employee who will constantly be accessible on the Windward Islands and who will work alternate at the Office on St. Eustatius and Saba.
The front office will be used in the new form as of January 2nd and the opening hours will be announced as soon as possible. The front offices will not be manned all days by the employee of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
That is why the front office on each island will have a feature where also, outside opening hours, direct and visual contact can be established with a staff member of the office on Bonaire.
This is a state-of-the-art video link that can also be used when the front office is not occupied. Outside the operating hours an appointment can be made to make use of this video link. This allows citizens to make direct “life-like” contact with an employee of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who can answer their question. These features are used in The Netherlands for contacts between citizens and police in areas where there are no police stations. The experiences there are quite good. Apparently, through the video connection, citizens really feel they have had a personal contact; a personal contact whereby the communication is much better than, for example, through the mail or phone. With this feature, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is leading the way service delivered at a distance.
Evaluation
In the tri-angle meeting of Island Governors, Dutch Caribbean Police Chief KPCN and Chief Public Prosecutor on Saba and St Eustatius and with the Attorney General, it was agreed that the new method will be constantly monitored. In any event, this approach will be formally evaluated after a year.