Says Next Important Step Is To Have Laws Translated into English
The Prime Minister of St. Maarten the Honorable Sarah Wescot-Williams officially launched the St. Maarten laws project at an event at the AC Wathey Legislative Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
The Prime Minister accompanied by acting lieutenant Governor His Excellency Reynold Groeneveld and the Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports the Honorable Patricia Philip-Lourens and supported by the director and staff of the Department of Legal Affairs opened the online archive of the Government laws for St. Maarten.
On October 10th, 2010, when the Island Territory of Sint Maarten became a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the acquisition of this new status brought forth many changes, particularly in the field of legislation. Since 10-10-10 Sint Maarten has inherited the legislation from the former Netherlands Antilles as well as the legislation from the former Island Territory Sint Maarten and it is these particular laws which the public now has access to via the Government website.
"I would like to commend the hard work of the Department of Legal Affairs for the work you have done in making the laws available online as I am sure it was indeed a time consuming process. It is very important, also in terms of transparency, to have the laws available in an online database for us to access. Even in the Council of Ministers I am sure there will be an opportunity to use the database when a law is necessary for us to look at urgently," commented the Prime Minister.
The online database can be accessed by visiting sintmaartengov.org and clicking on the laws section, using the search engine to find the relevant law. Despite most of the laws currently being in Dutch, the Prime Minister in her statement gave her assurances that the next important step will be to get the various laws translated into English. "It is very important that we have the applicable laws translated into our mother tongue so that the population can have the opportunity to read and understand the laws they are looking at. This will be the next step in building Country St. Maarten block by block, step by step," commented the Prime Minister.