Published on November 7 at 08:56 via Starnieuws, this op-ed from Surinamese legal expert Marc Bannenberg builds on Wilfred Leeuwin’s earlier column highlighting the burdensome legacy left by outgoing administrations for incoming governments. Across Suriname’s decades of democratic governance, routine leadership transitions have long included natural policy adjustments, personnel reshuffles, and directional shifts that are standard to healthy democratic dynamism. But a concerning, unregulated administrative practice widely referred to locally as “afscheidsbeleid” — or “farewell policy” — has emerged as a growing threat to functional public governance. This practice sees outgoing, demissionary administrations rush through sweeping, high-stakes decisions in their final weeks in office, with the explicit goal of trapping incoming governments in pre-determined outcomes that severely limit their policy autonomy. Common examples of these last-minute moves include awarding highly lucrative natural resource concessions and prime public land parcels, locking multi-decade long-term service contracts, appointing loyal allies to critical senior strategic public positions, and granting no-bid awards for large-scale public infrastructure projects. Many of these decisions are poorly documented, lack alignment with long-term national public interests, are pushed through without mandatory public consultation or standard regulatory approval processes, and serve no clear public benefit outside of partisan political strategy. While “farewell policy” is not a formal legal term in Surinamese statutory law, its tangible harms are well-documented: successive incoming administrations have inherited unsustainable unbudgeted financial obligations, near-irreversible policy commitments, and in some well-documented cases, clear conflicts of interest that erode public trust in state institutions. Bannenberg notes that neighboring Dutch-speaking Caribbean island jurisdictions have already successfully challenged these types of last-minute administrative abuses in court, where independent judges have the authority to review if decisions meet core principles of sound public governance, including proper due diligence, adherence to legal procedure, respect for fundamental rights, and alignment with broad public interest rather than narrow partisan political gain. Rulings that find these last-minute decisions fail such reviews can formally nullify the actions entirely, a powerful check that relies on a fully independent judiciary and a broader political culture committed to upholding the rule of law. The op-ed stresses that the rule of law is not an abstract theoretical concept, but a living practice that must be embedded in every step of administrative decision-making and every handover of state power. For Suriname to mature into a fully stable, functional democracy, political leaders must abandon the culture of laying deliberate policy traps for their successors and reject last-minute political opportunism in the final days of their elected mandates, to instead prioritize a fully transparent, ethical handover of public responsibility. Bannenberg argues that the current patchwork of oversight mechanisms — including presidential working groups, parliamentary oversight committees, the national audit office, independent media, and civil society organizations — often fail to effectively flag and block these abusive last-minute decisions, while the independent judiciary is only rarely activated to review the integrity of demissionary administrative actions. To address these systemic gaps, the legal expert puts forward three concrete, actionable policy proposals: first, the adoption of a formal, binding code of conduct for demissionary administrations that clearly outlines permitted and restricted actions for outgoing governments, including a mandatory public disclosure requirement for all high-impact decisions made in the final six months of an administration’s term. Second, targeted reforms to lower barriers to legal challenge for last-minute demissionary decisions, making judicial review processes more accessible, timely, and effective. Third, a nationwide public and political awareness campaign to reinforce that all elected officials bear an ongoing legal and ethical responsibility to uphold the rule of law, even in the final weeks of their time in public office.