The European Court of Human Rights judgment paints a serious picture of how Curaçao handled seven Venezuelan migrants intercepted at sea in April 2019. The Court did not say immigration detention itself is illegal in Curaçao. What it found was that the way these Venezuelans were treated exposed major failures in dignity, legal access, use of force, and accountability.
The seven Venezuelans were found on a small boat in Curaçao’s territorial waters on April 11, 2019. The Minister of Justice immediately denied them entry, ordered their removal, imposed three-year entry bans, and placed them in detention. The decisions were largely written in Dutch, a language the applicants did not understand, and the Court noted that only some parts of some decisions were translated.
The first major problem was detention placement. Four men were placed in the aliens’ barracks near the SDKK prison, while two others and a minor girl were placed inside the SDKK itself because of lack of space. The minor was held in the women’s section of an ordinary prison. A local judge later ordered her release, stating that detention of an unaccompanied minor should only happen for weighty reasons and urging Curaçao to adopt a clear policy for such cases.
The second problem was access to justice. The migrants had no legal assistance during the first week of detention, from April 11 to April 18. The European Court found that although interim relief theoretically existed, the migrants could not realistically use it from detention without a lawyer, especially since the detention orders did not explain that option and were not provided in a language they understood. This led to a violation of Article 5 § 4, the right to a speedy court review of detention.
The most serious findings concern the incident of June 9, 2019. Curaçao authorities attempted to move detainees from the aliens’ barracks to the ordinary prison. A confrontation followed, and officers used rubber bullets. The applicants said one man had 17 bullet marks, another had 15 injuries and a torn earlobe, and another had a shoe-print bruise on his back. Their lawyers were not allowed to take photographs or bring phones to document the injuries, and independent medical authorities were not allowed to examine them.
The prison’s own reports described the detainees as aggressive and claimed force was necessary. But that was precisely the problem: the investigation was not independent. The Court found that reports written by SDKK security officials could not replace an effective investigation into alleged ill-treatment by state agents. Curaçao had a duty to investigate seriously, independently, and promptly once the complaint was raised. It failed to do so.
Because there was no proper investigation, the Court said the government failed to prove that the use of rubber bullets was strictly necessary. It also noted that no information was provided showing that Curaçao had clear domestic rules regulating rubber bullets. As a result, the Court found inhuman or degrading treatment in relation to three applicants and a procedural violation for lack of investigation in relation to four.
The Court did reject several parts of the case. Complaints about general detention conditions were largely declared inadmissible, mainly because domestic remedies had not been fully exhausted. It also did not find collective expulsion, because the applicants eventually had the opportunity to apply for protection. But these rejections do not erase the central conclusion: Curaçao’s treatment fell below human rights standards in key moments.
In the end, four applicants were awarded €5,000 each for non-material damage, while three others were awarded €1,625 each. The Court rejected the rest of the claim.
The case exposes a system that in 2019 treated vulnerable Venezuelan migrants primarily as enforcement problems rather than rights-bearing individuals. The failures were not only physical, but procedural: unclear decisions, lack of translation, delayed legal access, detention of a minor in prison, force without adequate oversight, and no independent investigation afterward.
For Curaçao, the lesson is clear. Migration control may be lawful, but it must be carried out with dignity, transparency, legal access, and real accountability.