The early release of former Member of Parliament (MP) Theo Heyliger (see related story) following his five-year imprisonment in January 2024 for accepting bribes and money laundering is bound to spark comments about presumed political influence and favouritism. Heyliger reportedly served 1,102 days, which includes 91 days in 2019.
However, he is just one of several prisoners set free based on Article 1:37 of the Criminal Code due to detention capacity constraints. Once an inmate has served two-thirds (66.32%) of a sentence, regardless of the type of crime committed, the prison initiates the early release process, the Prosecutor’s Office verifies the calculation and the Central Probation Board CCR then considers whether any special conditions should be attached to the release before making a recommendation to the minister.
In August Minister of Justice Nathalie Tackling explained that she had asked the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) to independently verify a prison sentence calculation after two different calculations were submitted in connection with a request for early release. The case involved a request by Heyliger for permission to serve the remainder of his sentence under electronic monitoring with an ankle bracelet, which was denied.
The minister said the additional review was ordered as a precaution after the prison and an inmate’s attorney reached different conclusions on whether the inmate had served enough of the sentence to qualify for early release. UNOPS was chosen because of its involvement in building a new penitentiary system.
At the time the normal early release process did not proceed because the inmate had not yet reached the legal requirement. Tackling noted that “good behaviour” does not determine eligibility, as two-thirds of the sentence must be served.
When there is an acute lack of cell space the ones closest to doing so will be first in line to benefit from a so-called “train” policy through which the threshold could potentially be lowered to for example 60 or even 55% as happened in July 2025. This removes subjectivity from the process and prevents a Justice Minister from deciding eligibility based on the inmate's identity or the nature of the offence.
While the intention can obviously never be that prison terms handed out by judges are automatically only partially completed, the reality is that approximately 300 years of court-imposed prison sentences remain waiting to be executed. The current system is thus an undesirable necessity, which must be fairly applied.
