Seizure of passports couriers

August 25, 2008 7:07 AM

The Antillean court allows the Dutch passports of convicted drug couriers to be confiscated for three years. They are sentenced to a conditional punishment and can only travel between the Antillean islands with their ID-card. Couriers that live in the Netherlands receive a laissez passer to go back. The court says that a travel ban between the Netherlands and the Antilles is not enough.

After the High Court’s judgment of last year that decided that confiscating the passports violates the human rights on free traveling, the travel documents were since then no longer confiscated. They were banned from traveling between the Antilles and the Netherlands. But these people could travel around the world if they if wanted. The travel ban has been introduced again. This is necessary because of the serious consequences of internatuional drug trade for society. Furthermore  there is no room in jail for all those couriers. 
Foreign couriers, like Jamaican ones, are put on a plane home and cannot come back to the islands for three years.

The travel ban is included n the Civil Code but still needs to be approved.

(Source: National Newspaper Amigoe)

August 20, 2008