Appointment permanent notary for Saba, Statia in the making

The pro­cess to appoint a perma­nent notary for St. Eusta­tius and Saba has been initiated. The current no­tary, Marcia Bouterse, was appointed last summer for the islands on a temporary basis until a permanent solution was found.

The Joint Court of Jus­tice of Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten, and of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba has started the pro­cess to appoint a notary on a permanent basis for St. Eustatius and Saba, Dutch State Secretary for King­dom Relations and Digi­tisation Alexandra van Huffelen informed the Dutch Second Chamber of Parliament on Tuesday.

The liberal democratic VVD party had asked for clarity on this matter as part of a written consulta­tion about the St. Eustati­us intervention. The VVD said it was happy that for the time being an interim notary was found for St. Eustatius and Saba, but that they continued to find the situation “vulnerable”. The VVD asked what steps were being taken to realise a more sustainable solution.

Aside from the appoint­ment of a permanent no­tary for the islands, Van Huffelen told the Second Chamber that the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Se­curity, in consultation with the notaries in the Carib­bean Netherlands, would determine what would be needed to replace one an­other in case of temporary absence.

“For the long term, we have to look at what way the legal framework, also considering the comply or explain principle, can con­nect more to the rest of the Netherlands and in which way changes in the legal framework in the area of digitisation can be ben­eficial in practice for the Caribbean Netherlands,” stated Van Huffelen.

The digitising of notarial deeds is one of the things that could be addressed as part of the solution. In this regard, it is impor­tant to, together with the public entities St. Eusta­tius and Saba and the of­fice of the notary, see how the vulnerability of service providing can he reduced through digitisation.

At the same time, it was important that the digiti­sation efforts would not affect the presence and accessibility of notarial services in the region, as­sured Van Huffelen. St. Eustatius and Saba are very content with the pres­ence of a notary since the summer of 2022. Before that, the islands had been without a notary for some time.

The Daily Herald.

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2 comments

  1. Each island needs a permanent notary as the current notary is so overwhelmed with work, cases cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Months go by before the notary can even see a client and then even longer before she can handle the case, which makes it close to a year before anything can be done. Not acceptable. She also is so busy she can’t even answer emails or phone calls. Very unprofessional. Either another notary needs to be appointed to assist her or each island needs their own notary. As is, this is only a slight better improvement than our previous situation of no notary. No one should have to wait a year or more to have notarial services provided.

    • I totally agree with the statement above and have heard from many that this is now the case.
      I agree that we need our own Notary per small island as the work must be a bit over-whelming for a single notary!
      Or…allow us again to use SXM notary’s..(We loved all our dealings & workings with Ms. Mingo and things were handled in a fashionable and timely manner with her office as well.)
      Saba has so many old documents and old issues to be sorted out that it must be profusely hard to handle all of our-issues here, on top of another island with some of the same ole issues at hand to deal with there as well!

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