During the General Political Considerations, the House of Representatives will discuss the emergency legislation, which the cabinet wants to use as a means to curb the influx of asylum seekers. Christian Union MP Pieter Grinwis thinks that the Schoof I cabinet is handling this poorly. “It is not a promising start,” he says in the radio program Sven op 1.
Emotions ran so high in the House of Representatives that CU leader Mirjam Bikker speaks of ‘constitutional piracy’. She also questions the constitutional leadership of Prime Minister Dick Schoof.
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‘State emergency law is no joke’
Grinwis can agree with the words of his political leader. “State emergency law is no small matter, it is no piece of cake.” It is a measure that is rarely or never taken out of the closet. Except during the corona pandemic, when cabinet Rutte IV imposed a curfew.
To make a point, Grinwis uses the floods in Central Europe as an example. “There is no question of a government being powerless, but of force majeure.” In other words: there is clearly an emergency situation. “Only then do you use the emergency law,” he argues. “You don’t do that with asylum figures that are below the European average and which you have seen coming for years.”
According to Grinwis, that is a “very important, politically substantive point”. Also because there are few to no documents available to substantiate the use of an emergency law, he says. “That makes it difficult to send something to the House, but the Prime Minister will have to do that anyway.”
Listen to the broadcast of Sven op 1 now as a podcast. Text continues below.
Prime Minister Schoof
Grinwis says that “today will have to show” how things are with Schoof’s constitutional leadership, which Bikker has her doubts about. “The first signs are not positive. He is caught between a main agreement and a number of parties that seem to be taking liberties with our constitutional law and the sense of the rule of law.”
On the other hand, Schoof is “at the table with the Lower House, which is invoking Article 68 (of the Constitution, ed.)”. That article gives individual members of the House the right to request information from ministers. The ministers and state secretaries are then obliged to hand over this information. “Schoof himself says that he is stuck. I think that is very significant.”
To Shoof the Captain Sparrow of Dutch democracy, Grinwis goes too far. “We have to give him a chance first, but the first signs of the Schoof cabinet, when it comes to invoking a serious matter such as an emergency law and how they deal with it, are not very promising.”
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By: Vick ten Wolde