By mr. Sjamira Roseburg, Attorney and Member of Parliament, Sint Maarten
Picture two months already served before a trial even starts. The law says that time counts toward the sentence, full stop. Fair enough. But if that same calculation is applied inconsistently elsewhere in the system, those same sixty days could quietly stop counting somewhere else. That’s not how the law is supposed to work, and it’s worth explaining clearly, so everyone understands exactly how it should be done.
What the “Train” Actually Is
Pointe Blanche has been over capacity for years, with the new prison construction completion still in the distant future. So the law built in a release valve, under Article 1:37 of the Penal Code: when the prison is too full, the Minister of Justice, and only the Minister of Justice, has the legal authority to let the detainees closest to their release date go a little early. Not because they earned a discount, not because their crime was minor, but purely because they’re furthest along in serving their time. Everyone advances in order, like passengers boarding a train one stop at a time. Hence the name.
I submitted a motion on this exact issue to Parliament on June 23, 2025 (Motion #12), asking for one clear, written policy for how Article 1:37 is applied, so that detainees and the prison itself both know exactly where they stand. That request still matters today, because the calculation method behind this rule needs to be applied the same way, every time.
Same Sixty Days, Two Different Formulas
Here’s the fault line worth understanding. To decide who boards the train next under Article 1:37, the system has to calculate what percentage of a sentence someone has already served. That calculation should include everything, including any time spent in pre-trial detention before the sentence formally began.
In principle, that time should count in both of the calculations involved. When calculating someone’s actual release date, pre-trial detention is meant to be deducted
properly. When calculating the percentage that determines a person’s place in line, that same pre-trial time should be counted too. If it’s applied one way in one calculation and a different way in the other, the two results won’t match, and only one of them can be correct.
An Example, to Show How the Math Works
Take a hypothetical detainee serving 48 months, roughly 1,440 days. Say he spent 60 days in custody before trial and has since served 700 days since sentencing began.
Calculated one way (excluding pre-trial detention): 700 divided by 1,440 comes out to 48.6 percent.
Calculated the way the law requires (including it): 760 days (60 + 700) divided by 1,440 comes out to 52.8 percent.
Four percentage points doesn’t sound like much, until you measure it against the threshold that actually decides eligibility under Article 1:37: two-thirds of the sentence. Against that bar, the gap widens past six percentage points. That’s a meaningful difference, and it shows exactly why the method matters, not just the outcome in any one case.
Why Getting the Method Right, Every Time, Matters
Multiply that gap across hundreds of detainees, each with a different mix of pre-trial time and sentence length, and it’s easy to see how a small inconsistency in method could add up to unequal outcomes over time, not because of any one person’s fault, but simply because the same rule wasn’t applied the same way twice. Since it’s the Minister of Justice who holds the authority to apply Article 1:37, it’s also the Minister’s responsibility to ensure the calculation behind it is applied consistently. That’s exactly the kind of inconsistency a clear, written framework for Article 1:37 is meant to prevent.
What the Law Already Says
This isn’t a matter of guesswork or interpretation. Article 1:31(3) of the Penal Code states plainly that pre-trial detention counts toward reaching the one-third or two-thirds mark of a sentence, the very mark that Article 1:37 relies on to decide who moves up the line. Article 1:62, elsewhere in the same code, requires that pre-trial detention be deducted in full. The legislature wrote it this way deliberately, so that no detainee’s outcome under Article 1:37 depends on which formula happens to be used.
The law is just as clear on timing. A release decision has to reach the detainee in person
before release, not after, underscoring that any determination under Article 1:37 is meant to be made well in advance, not at the last moment.
Victims Deserve the Same Notice
Here I’ll add my own view, since the law doesn’t spell this part out with the same precision: victims and their families deserve to know ahead of time too. If someone was harmed by the person now behind bars, they shouldn’t find out about a release after the fact. They should hear it in advance, the same principle of timeliness that already applies to the detainee.
Getting the math right matters. Getting it right consistently, and communicating it early to everyone with a stake in it, matters just as much.
The Point
Pre-trial detention has to count everywhere: in the release date, and in the percentage that decides who’s next in line under Article 1:37. That’s what my motion asked for a year ago, and it’s why I keep raising it now, not because the fix is complicated, but because a clear, consistently applied rule for Article 1:37, which is the responsibility of the Minister of Justice to establish and apply, is the simplest way to make sure everyone (detainees, victims, and the institutions applying the law) knows exactly where they stand.
I look forward to seeing that policy take shape, so that it’s clear for everyone involved.
Mr. Sjamira Roseburg is an attorney at Consider It Solved by Roseburg & Partners and a Member of Parliament of Sint Maarten. She submitted Motion #12 on this subject on June 23, 2025.
