“I swear to the peoples of the Kingdom that I will always maintain and uphold the Statute for the Kingdom and the Constitution”, declared King Willem-Alexander on April 30, 2013 at his inauguration in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. The presence of the regalia – crown, orb and scepter – but especially the ermine cloak around his shoulders gave the words extra emphasis. You would almost be inclined to take that text seriously, especially given the genteel, highly qualified company that surrounded the king. This was no drink talk.
Now the practice.
In recent days there has been much talk about the application of Article 57 of the Constitution. This stipulates that a minister or state secretary cannot also be a member of the House of Representatives or the Senate. Paragraph 3 of that article provides one ground for exception: a member of the cabinet who has made his office available can also be a member of parliament “until a decision has been made about the availability”. In plain Dutch: if you are a member of a cabinet that becomes a caretaker and you are subsequently elected as a member of parliament, you may exercise both functions until a new cabinet is formed.
Many legal scholars have explained in recent days that the appointment of state secretaries Dennis Wiersma, Steven van Weyenberg and Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius, all elected to the House of Representatives on 17 March and not yet a member of the – caretaker – cabinet at that time, is unconstitutional. is. They should have given up their membership of parliament when they were appointed. Prime Minister Rutte thought otherwise. According to him, the exception in Article 57, paragraph 3 of the Constitution also applies to these three.
A child can read in the Constitution that this is nonsense. After all, Wiersma, Van Weyenberg and Yesilgöz have not made their office available at all because when all cabinet members did so on January 15, 2021, they were not there at all. They did not give up their office but eagerly accepted it. Status, official car, increased salary, household, curriculum vitae and pride of the whole family. All fine, but then also accept the corresponding constitutional consequence.
The House of Representatives has asked the Council of State for urgent advice. I would be surprised if the Council, which showed itself in the allowance affair as a very strict enforcer of laws and regulations, comes to a different judgment than the constitutional lawyers.
Then not only the three brand new secretaries of state and the prime minister have a problem, but also the king. Because what had he promised us on April 30, 2013? “I swear I will always uphold the Constitution”. Then do that!
The Cabinet of the King supports the monarch in the exercise of his constitutional duties. Isn’t there just one lawyer who said, “Your Majesty, do you remember Article 57 of the Constitution from your history education in Leiden? The highly learned and respected historian, the late Professor Henk Wesseling, who supervised your graduation thesis, will nevertheless guide you through the development of the ideas behind Article 57 of our current Constitution, started in 1798 as Article 35 of the Constitution and further developed after 1848 as the incompatibilities Article 91. from Thorbecke’s constitutional texts? We advise you to point out to the Prime Minister the experienced dualistic character of the Dutch polity and to strongly advise him not to continue with these appointments.
If the Prime Minister persists, there is nothing for it but to sign at the cross. But then you say:
Mr Rutte, you are familiar with Article 42, paragraph 2 of the Constitution. The King is inviolable, the ministers are responsible. If it messes up, you’ll hang and I don’t want to be bothered by it. Remember April 30, 2013!
That’s probably not how it went. I am also afraid that the King has not drawn the MP’s attention to the fact that, including the three state secretaries, eleven of the current 25 cabinet members are also members of the House of Representatives, and that this means that the House has not fulfilled its supervisory task since 17 March. 150 but with first 142 and now 139 members does. That this is highly undesirable. That this has been going on for almost half a year and it seems to be taking much longer. That this will take on the character of a coup d’état, all the more so since the cabinet already submitted its resignation on January 15 of this year.
Where is the king when you need him?
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