WILLEMSTAD – A traffic fine issued to a Curaçao motorist for allegedly using a mobile phone while driving has been dismissed because the police report failed to clearly describe what the officer had actually observed.
The case, heard this week by the Court of First Instance, is not the first traffic case in Curaçao to collapse because police observations were insufficiently documented.
A 21-year-old woman challenged two traffic fines. One concerned her failure to carry her driver's license, while the other was issued for allegedly using a telephone while driving.
The woman admitted that she had left her driver's license at home. However, she was able to demonstrate in court that she had a valid license at the time she was stopped. The court imposed a fine of XCG 50 for failing to carry the document.
The second fine was dismissed.
The woman told the court that her phone had been lying in a compartment underneath the car radio and that she had been listening to voice messages through Bluetooth. She maintained that she had neither held the telephone in her hand nor placed it against her ear.
The Public Prosecutor's Office agreed that the police report did not contain sufficient detail to establish the violation. The officer had failed to describe precisely how the woman was supposedly using the telephone, making it impossible to determine exactly what had been observed.
The judge agreed and dismissed the fine.
A remarkably similar case came before Curaçao's traffic court in 2018. At the time, a driver had received a XCG 300 fine after police alleged that he was driving with a telephone held against his ear.
The driver denied the allegation and said he had been using Bluetooth. He also presented screenshots of his telephone activity. The prosecutor eventually concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish that he had actually been driving with the phone against his ear. The judge consequently gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Other traffic cases have encountered similar evidentiary problems this year.
In February, a 24-year-old motorist successfully challenged a fine for allegedly having excessively tinted windows. Police had not measured how much light passed through the windows, while the official report contained no sufficiently concrete evidence establishing the violation. The Public Prosecutor's Office itself requested an acquittal.
Another case followed a month later involving suspected driving under the influence. Officers reported that the driver had red eyes, difficulty standing and a bottle of whisky in the vehicle. However, no breathalyzer test had been conducted.
The Public Prosecutor's Office concluded that the police report also failed to sufficiently establish, through concrete observations, that the driver had been under the influence while driving. The defendant was acquitted.
The cases underline the importance of detailed police reports in traffic enforcement. An officer's conclusion that an offense occurred may not by itself be sufficient when the underlying observations needed to prove the violation are not clearly documented.