User:Fentener van Vlissingen/Kingdom

Constitutional nature
Most scholars agree that it is difficult to group the constitutional arrangements of the Kingdom in one of the traditional models of state organization, and consider the Kingdom to be a sui generis arrangement. Instead, the Kingdom is said to have characteristics of federal state, a confederation, a federacy, and a devolved unitary state.

The Kingdom's federal characteristics include the delineation of Kingdom affairs in the Charter, the enumeration of the constituting parts of the Kingdom in the Charter, the fact that the Charter subordinates the law of the constituting countries to the law of the Kingdom, the establishment of Kingdom institutions in the Charter, and the fact that the Kingdom has its own legislative instruments: the Kingdom act and the Order-in-Council for the Kingdom. Its confederal characteristics include the fact that the Charter can only be changed by consensus among the constituent countries; in most ordinary federations, the federal institutions themselves can change the constitution.

Characteristics that point more or less to a federacy include the fact that the functioning of the institutions of the Kingdom is governed by the Constitution of the Netherlands if the Charter doesn't provide for them. The Charter also doesn't provide a procedure for the enactment of Kingdom acts; articles 81 to 88 of the Constitution of the Netherlands also apply for Kingdom acts, be it with some additions and corrections stipulated in articles 15 to 22 of the Charter. The only Kingdom institution that requires the participation of the Caribbean countries in a mandatory way is the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom; both the Supreme Court and the Council of State of the Kingdom only include Caribbean members if one or both Caribbean countries ask for it, and the Caribbean countries are almost completely excluded from participating in the Kingdom's legislature. They can, however, participate in the drafting of a Kingdom act and their Ministers Plenipotentiary can oppose a Kingdom act otherwise supported by the Kingdom government in front of the Kingdom's parliament. Furthermore, according to article 15 of the Charter, the Ministers Plenipotentiary can request the Kingdom parliament to introduce a draft Kingdom act.

Last, but not least, the Netherlands can, according to article 14 of the Charter, conduct Kingdom affairs on its own if conducting such affairs doesn't affect Aruba or the Netherlands Antilles. The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba do not have this right.

A characteristic that points to a devolved unitary state is the ability of the Kingdom government, according to article 50 of the Charter, to render a legislative or administrative measure of one of the Caribbean countries void if it is inconsistent with the Charter, an international agreement, a Kingdom act, an Order-in-Council for the Kingdom, or if it regulates an otherwise Kingdom affair.

The constitutional structure of the Kingdom is summarized by constitutional scholar C. Borman, in a often quoted sentence, as follows:

"a voluntary association of autonomous countries in a sovereign Kingdom that is placed above them, in which the institutions of the Kingdom largely coincide with the institutions of the largest country, in which on the level of the Kingdom only a few affairs are governed, and in which from the level of the Kingdom a limited influence can be exerted on the smaller countries"

- C. Borman

Constitutional scholar C.A.J.M. Kortmann speaks of an "association of countries that has characteristics of a federation, yet one of its own kind." Belinfante and De Reede do speak about a "federal association" without any reservations.