Teun Struycken

Teun Struycken
Minister of Justice
In office 1950–1951
Monarch	Juliana
Preceded by	Ivo Samkalden
Succeeded by	Albert Christiaan Willem Beerman
Governor of the Netherlands Antilles
In office 1951–1956
Monarch	Juliana
Preceded by	Leonard Antoon Hubert Peters
Succeeded by	Frans van der Valk
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior
In office 1956–1959
Monarch	Juliana
Preceded by	Ko Suurhoff
Succeeded by	Edzo Toxopeus
Member of the Dutch Council of State
In office 1959–1966
Monarch	Juliana
Personal details
Born	Antoon Arnold Marie Struycken 27 December 1906 Breda
Nationality	Dutch

Antoon Arnold Marie Struycken (27 December 1906, Breda – 1 December 1977, The Hague) was a Dutch politician and a member of the Catholic People's Party. He was among others Minister of Justice, Governor of the Netherlands Antilles, Minister of the Interior and a member of the Dutch Council of State. He was also alderman of Breda from 1938 to 1941, and from 1944 to 1950.

Biography

File:AAMStruycken.jpg

Portrait of Struycken.

Struycken was interred in the Sint-Michielsgestel prison camp during the Second World War. After the war he was briefly Minister of Justice, in which capacity he commuted the death sentences of the "Four of Breda" (Franz Fischer, Ferdinand aus der Fünten, Joseph Kotälla, and Willy Lages) to life imprisonment.

While Governor of the Netherlands Antilles, Struycken came into conflict with the Council of Ministers of the Netherlands Antilles, who wanted to install S.W. van der Meer as Minister of Justice. Van der Meer, who had his own law practice in Curaçao, did not agree to give up his practice as a lawyer completely, prompting Struycken to refuse to install Van der Meer. The Dutch Antillean government complained to the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands about the governor's inappropriate involvement in government matters. The Netherlands government eventually agreed with the Antillean government. This affair resulted in a reorientation of the office of Governor of the Netherlands Antilles, which increasingly began to resemble the role of the constitutional monarch in the Netherlands.

References

• Oostindie, Gert and Inge Klinkers (2001) Het Koninkrijk in de Caraïben: een korte geschiedenis van het Nederlandse dekolonisatiebeleid 1940-2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.