Parties in the House of Representatives are embarrassed about the way in which the investigation into former Speaker of the House Khadija Arib has been handled. On Friday evening, the entire top officials of the Chamber resigned because they no longer feel safe.
The parties call for normal dealings with each other again and to ensure ‘a safe working climate for civil servants’. It appears that a majority will vote next week to allow the investigation into Arib to continue.
The Chamber keeps losing authority and trust
On Friday, President of the House Vera Bergkamp and with her the entire executive committee of the House of Representatives (the Presidium) were seriously embarrassed when the entire top official of parliament resigned. In a farewell letter, clerk Simone Roos expressed the grievances of her and her colleagues. They accuse the political leadership in the House of derailing the investigation into Arib. They also complain that they feel unsafe because they have been made part of the discussion.
Serious signal
“The fact that the administrative staff of the House no longer wants to work in an unsafe culture of suspicions is a very serious signal,” CDA party chairman Pieter Heerma said. MPs have an exemplary function, he believes. “Without decency, respect and self-control, the House always loses authority and trust. Being a Member of Parliament is a privilege, not a license to say whatever you want. We must be careful with the people who support our work and avoid drawing them into the political debate.”
SP party chairman Lilian Marijnissen calls it bad that the House seems to be mainly concerned with itself. ,,We have to talk in The Hague about Nibud, which announced today that 4 out of 10 people have difficulty making ends meet. Or about our pensions that are becoming even more uncertain and the state pension age that continues to rise. The benefits scandal that is still unresolved.”
PVV leader Geert Wilders says via Twitter that it is ‘a mess’. ‘The investigation into Arib is political knife-making of the nastiest kind.’ He calls Bergkamp incompetent and thinks she should ‘go away’. Bergkamp does not intend to do the latter.
Anonymous letters
There has been leaked, there has been scheming
The matter revolves around an investigation that the presidency has launched into former Speaker of the House Khadija Arib after two anonymous letters complaining about her behavior against officials in the past. Bergkamp reported that the current top officials recognized the complaints, which prompted the presidium to start an investigation. Many MPs then questioned the independence of the investigation and the involvement of senior officials in it. There were also doubts whether the complaints were not exaggerated. The parties wanted the investigation to be halted at least temporarily.
Bergkamp believes it is important that the investigation continues. “If something happens at a hockey club, you also investigate it. So why shouldn’t we as the House of Representatives investigate if there are reports?” she responded to the officials’ departure. “We tried to keep it out of politics. We didn’t manage to do that. There has been a leak, there has been scheming. And that is why I think it is important that the House expresses itself to continue with this investigation.”
Made political
Striking: because Bergkamp now wants the House to give a ruling on the question of whether the investigation into Arib should continue, it becomes political. Still, the approach seems to work. The first parties have already announced that the investigation into Arib must continue in any case.
MP Joost Sneller (D66) calls the resignation of the officials ‘a painful cry for help’. He believes that the investigation should continue ‘at rest’. “The resignation of the House’s management team is extremely painful and makes it clear that the House currently offers insufficient security for employees,” says Mirjam Bikker (ChristenUnie). “The House as a whole should take that into account.”
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