Senate President Jan Anthonie Bruijn can look serious. By Monday evening he looked quite serious. And highly irritated. “Dear members. In view of Article 75(3) of the Rules of Procedure, I note that there is still no quorum.”
On three occasions, the VVD member had to conclude that there were not enough senators present to allow the planned plenary meeting to take place. That hadn’t happened since 1940. This requires a presence of half plus one: 38 members. On Monday evening there were only 37 in the house.
After twice postponing the start of the debate, chairman Bruijn decided to postpone the debate to Tuesday morning – with apologies to the three cabinet members who were present.
“An embarrassing display,” said GroenLinks senator Roel van Gurp, who was also absent. Especially because of the subject on the roll: the state of the rule of law. In view of the special role of the Senate in the state system, senators are expected to take this annual debate very seriously.
Now Monday evening is an unusual time for the Senate to meet – Tuesday is the regular meeting day. Because a debate about the intended purchase of additional KLM shares had taken priority, the registry had postponed the debate on the rule of law to Monday. In that case, all political groups have agreed, each group will ensure that at least half of its members are present. Six factions had not adhered to this, including the SP, FVD and ruling party D66.
Also read Tom-Jan Meeus’ column: The decline of the Senate: Free beer, procedural rumblings and bullying
On Tuesday afternoon, during the suspension of the postponed debate, chairman Bruijn discussed the matter with all group chairmen. The outcome was that everyone was ashamed of it and they solemnly promised that they would better keep to the attendance appointment. The Senate does not consider it necessary to reintroduce a digital attendance list, as had existed for a while during the coronalockdowns.