PHILIPSBURG: --- Justice Minister Nathalie Tackling told Parliament that she signed a removal order for a person connected to a fatal traffic collision without knowing who the individual was or which investigation was involved. About 30 minutes later, after a message or telephone call from MP Lyndon Lewis, she contacted the chief public prosecutor and learned that the case remained under active investigation.
Tackling said the individual had been released from criminal custody and transferred to immigration authorities. According to the minister, the prosecutor did not tell her that the person had to remain in Sint Maarten for investigative purposes, and no such instruction was later communicated to the ministry. She said immigration authorities also considered the person’s immigration status and concerns about possible retaliation by the victim’s family.
The admission places a critical question before the public: How should authorities ensure that a person remains available to investigators before a removal order is carried out in a fatal-collision case?
Tackling told Parliament that the law does not require immigration officials to obtain formal clearance from the police or Prosecutor’s Office before executing a removal order. If prosecutors need a person to remain available, she said, they must communicate that need to immigration authorities. She maintained that removal does not end criminal liability and that prosecution can still be pursued.
The minister rejected the suggestion that she had information unavailable to investigators. She said she did not possess the criminal case file and had no authority to overrule prosecutorial decisions.
Her answers also exposed a limit in government recordkeeping. Tackling said the ministry could not provide a verified five-year count of people removed before serving all or part of a criminal sentence because prosecution and immigration records are kept in separate systems that are not automatically linked.
For the family of a fatal-collision victim, the distinction between a case remaining legally open and a person remaining available to investigators may be consequential. Parliament now has the minister’s account of the decision and its timing. The document containing her answers does not establish whether the removal affected this investigation or any future prosecution.
