The rule of law depends on one basic principle: when a court issues a judgment, everyone should know exactly what it means.
That is why the ruling in the case involving The View Resort & Marina is troubling—not because the court found building violations, but because it appears to have reached two opposite conclusions in the same judgment.
The body of the decision carefully explains why five buildings were constructed in violation of the approved building permit. It states that the minister should not have rejected the residents' request for enforcement because there was no pending application that could legalize those deviations at the time. It even says the minister must make a new decision.
Then comes the final ruling—the legally operative part of the judgment—and it says exactly the opposite: the appeal is unfounded.
This is not a minor typographical mistake.
If the operative part remains unchanged, the minister has no legal obligation to revisit the case. If the reasoning reflects the court's true intention, the government may indeed have to reconsider enforcement measures. Those are two completely different legal outcomes.
For the residents, the developer, the government and the wider public, certainty matters. Investors need predictable legal decisions. Citizens need confidence that courts speak with one clear voice. Government officials must know precisely what they are required to do.
The case also highlights another important point. The court made clear that building differently from approved plans is still a legal violation, even if the structure is not larger or taller than originally authorized. That is an important clarification for future development projects across Curaçao. A building permit is more than a general guideline—it is a legally binding approval of specific plans.
Now the immediate priority should be to correct the judgment, if indeed a clerical error has occurred. Curaçao's justice system has mechanisms to rectify obvious mistakes, and this appears to be precisely the type of situation those procedures were designed to address.
The integrity of the judicial system depends not only on reaching the correct decision, but also on expressing that decision clearly and unambiguously. When the reasoning and the ruling contradict one another, everyone is left wondering which one actually governs. That uncertainty benefits no one—not the government, not developers, not residents, and certainly not the rule of law.