THE HAGUE, 08/03/03 - The Queen's cabinet personally gave the order to the domestic intelligence service to investigate the husband of Princess Margarita, Premier Jan Peter Balkenende has confirmed. He will inform the Lower House further on the matter on Monday.

It can be assumed that Queen Beatrix was aware of the commission to her cabinet to investigate the past of Margarita's husband, Edwin de Roy van Zuydewijn. The question of whether she herself was the mastermind is constitutionally unimportant; the premier is responsible for the behavior of the inviolable Queen. The ministerial responsibility also applies to all members of the Royal House, to which Margarita and her husband do not belong.

The Queen's cabinet, which maintains contacts between the premier and the Queen, according to Balkenende launched an investigation into De Roy van Zuidewijn without the permission of the Home Affairs Minister. Under the then obtaining Intelligence Act, the minister's signature was not necessary if there was a question of investigating 'persons against whom the serious suspicion exists that they pose a danger for weighty interests of the state.' The minister must however 'during continuation' be put in the picture of 'everything that can be of importance.' But the then minister, Bram Peper, says he does not know about any investigation.

Under the legislation then obtaining, the secret services also required no permission from the minister to pass on personal data to 'interest-carriers,' meaning government bodies. As a member of the government, the Queen is a government body, according to the home affairs ministry. But constitutional specialists differ on this point. Even more doubtful is whether the Royal House can pass investigation data on to outsiders, as presumably was done to the father of Princess Margarita.

The Lower House considers it appropriate that the cabinet offered its apologies to Margarita and her husband last Thursday because they were not informed that De Roy van Zuidewijn had been investigated. The couple state however that no apologies have been made for "everything that has been done to them," but for the "Mess within the ministries and within ministerial responsibility," according to their lawyer Peter Nicolai.

Parties including the conservatives (VVD), Pim Fortuyn List (LPF), the leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) and center-left (D66) are demanding clarification from Balkenende. The Christian democrats (CDA) and Labour (PvdA) primarily want to adduce "lessons" for the future. It is not yet clear whether or when an emergency debate will take place.