SXMElections.com

St. Maarten —The SMTA yesterday called for an immediate summit to be convened with the current Parliamentary initiator of the law–MP Leroy de Weever–, the Ministers of TEAT and Justice, the Council of Advice, the Ombudsman, Legal Affairs and the SMTA in order to make a plan to get this (timeshare) legislation corrected and if necessary, translated properly to Dutch, and passed in the shortest time possible.

The SMTA’s call comes on the heels of recent developments surrounding the Timeshare ordinance. “We have just learned that the Council of Advice is unhappy with the Timeshare Ordinance and the Timeshare Authority Ordinance which will assist government and consumers in regulating the timeshare industry being in the English language. At the time the laws were drafted for MP Leroy de Weever, the initiator of the laws, then Minister of Justice Duncan and the supervising expert of the legislation, judge Professor de Boer, believed that there was ample justification for the laws to be drafted in English as it is one of our two official languages.,” SMTA chairman Marcel Javois said yesterday.

“In April of last year the SMTA met with Minister of Justice Richardson, who said that many timeshare concepts were so English specific given that Holland has only one small timeshare property, that English should be used but the law should be as a separate National law rather than part of the Civil Code, which needs to be as uniform as possible throughout the Kingdom. We understand that the Council of Advice is also not satisfied with that as a solution,” Javois said.

The SMTA considers the issue an urgent national priority now that two large timeshare properties are having serious trouble “and government has no tools to help” and contends that the time for decisive action is now. “We believe that it is now time for urgent action with this matter having been on the table for over 18 years.”