Bribery-suspect detained....

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Brison’s arrest had immediate consequences for the political balance of power. With his absence, the coalition of the Silveria Jacobs government would have no longer had a majority in parliament. It could only count on the support of seven MPs, equal to the number in the camp of the opposition. With the release of Brison, the coalition can utter a sigh of relief.

Keeping Brison detained was not an option, because he would have had to be transferred to the Pointe Blanche prison this week. And there is no place in the prison. The prosecutor’s office said in a press release that the arrested and now released politician remains a suspect in the Lissaboninvestigation. This probe is based on the suspicion that Brison took bribes and abused his position. More arrests and searches are not ruled out.

The Lissabon-investigation is conducted by the Detective Cooperation Team RST under the direction of the central team of the attorney general’s office of Curacao, St. Maarten, Bonaire, Statia and Saba.

Continued reading: From United Suspects to United Perpetrators

St. Maarten’s reputation got another wallop when the RST arrested Member of Parliament Rolando Brison on Friday and released him again on Saturday evening. The suspicions against the MP are bribery and abuse of power. He remains a suspect.

When prosecutors suspect you of something, it does not necessarily mean that you are guilty. That applies to all citizens and also to Brison.

But when you are a public figure, like Brison is as a member of parliament, the dynamics change dramatically. On one side of the fence, people have a tendency to scream guilty. On the other side of the fence are the suspect’s supporters who will maintain that he would never do a thing like that. Smack in the middle are politicians who don’t want to burn their fingers on such delicate matters and they proclaim therefore that justice must run its course.

Unfortunately, our country can make a rather impressive list of politicians who ended up on the wrong side of the law. For instance: Theo Heyliger, Chanel Brownbill, Frans Richardson, and now - if only as a suspect - Rolando Brison. It is not our role to defend Brison. Nor is it our role to hang him high. We observe and from where we are looking at this case, things don’t look to bright for him. Why?

This is because politicians, other than common mortals, have built an additional layer of protection into the law. Prosecutors cannot just go after politicians because they suspect them of criminal wrongdoing. The prosecutors have to go to the appeals court in Curacao first to ask permission to prosecute a politician. Right now, they are not prosecuting, they are investigating. That is probably also the reason why the prosecutor’s office declined to publish the name or even the initials of the parliamentarians they arrested on Friday.

Article 2 of the national ordinance that regulates the prosecuting of politicians states: “Prosecuting a politician who is suspected of a crime only takes place after an order to prosecute from the Appeals Court (in Dutch: het Hof), after a demand by the attorney-general.”

This mechanism was put in place to prevent politically motivated prosecution. So prosecutors first have to convince three judges in Curacao that they have a case. Or, to say this in a different way, that the suspicions they have are based on something that has a reasonable chance of getting a conviction. If their