WILLEMSTAD, Curacao — On March 24th, 2022, Dr. Rutsel Martha delivered a riveting speech regarding COHO and its implementation before the Parliament of Curacao. Dr. Martha is a distinguished legal practitioner and former General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs for INTERPOL. He pointed out that COHO is focused primarily on public finance which falls directly under the jurisdiction of Parliament.
Additionally, Dr. Martha opined that the Council of Advice has stated that “the process of establishing a Consensus Kingdom Law can be halted by either the government or Parliament of a country”. In order to come to an agreement, there must be a meeting of minds. There must be agreement and consent must be of free will. Consent is considered defective in cases of threat, error, or deceit.
Dr. Martha wished to point out that the Kingdom Charter, as well as, the Constitution requires Parliament to ensure that legislation complies with applicable treaties. In this case, Article 73 of the UN Charter must be kept in mind which emphasizes the right to self-determination and self-government and that the interest of the people is paramount. That is one of the criteria by which COHO must be judged.
A law must lead to the objectives one has set for it to accomplish. Dr. Martha stated that he doubts that this (COHO) law will lead to solving any problems because in none of the documents leading up to the drafting of this legislation has he witnessed a functional analysis. In other words, there is no functional analysis that shows what objectives COHO will achieve. Even the Advisory Council has stated, “It must be doubted if with the presently chosen law one can reasonably expect success in the short and long term.”
Lastly, Dr. Martha gives us a stark reminder when he prophetically declared “Let us not be blinded by the idea that getting money from Holland is the solution. History has shown that this is not the case. We only have to recall that our debts were written off in 2008. Today we again have a debt of Naf. 2.5 billion. Getting money is not the solution.”
