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PHILIPSBURG--The hold up in the processing of the draft initiative laws to regulate the timeshare sector has come down to a matter of language. The two draft laws are written in English, one of the official languages of the country, but the Advisory Council has requested the law to be re-submitted by the Democratic Party ((DP)), the initiator, in Dutch.
All of the country's laws are in Dutch and the judicial system, which executes the laws, is almost entirely in Dutch.
(DP) Leader Member of Parliament Sarah Wescot-Williams said at a press conference held in Parliament House on Monday, she intends to take up the law with Tourism and Economic Affairs Minister Claret Connor, when they meet on February 5. A package of documents related to the draft law has been sent to the minister.
She hopes government will decide to pursue the completion of the law process, as it has the apparatus to readily change the law from English to Dutch. Parliament in its fifth year of existence still does not have a legislation department.
Should government take charge of the laws, the initiative law will have to be pulled back from Parliament by (DP).
The Advisory Council motivated its position about the laws being in Dutch, saying that the laws sought to amend the Civil Code, a body of law that is in the Dutch language with no companion English translation. This was communicated to the then (DP) Parliamentarian Leroy de Weever and this resulted in the draft being made into an ordinance separate from the Civil Code.
Wescot-Williams said it was thought that making the draft an ordinance, while keeping the language in English would have aided the situation. However, the Advisory Council still requested the law in Dutch. "The language remained a stumbling block," she said.
The reason for presenting the law in English, according to Wescot-Williams, was to match the language of the timeshare sector. Timeshare owners and timeshare companies are generally English speakers or have English as their language of business.
The need for better timeshare regulation to protect timeshare owners and the country has been a pending issue for more than two decades. The Timeshare Action Committee had discussions about plotting the way forward since the 1990s.
