The Supreme Court of the Netherlands on 8 May 2012 gave verdict on a case in which a homeless man called a police man a ‘mierenneuker’ – an ‘ant fucker’. The homeless man was prosecuted and convicted for insulting a police officer by the court of first instance and on appeal. The Supreme Court found differently. The police officer had taken away a beer can from the homeless man and thrown it in the trash can. Calling that police man an ant fucker is not always an insult, the Supreme Court found. An ant fucker in common sense usage in the Netherlands is someone who is very strict, actually too strict on rules – focused too much on the small things in life and on the millimeters, and not on things that really matter.
According to the Supreme Court, the context of the utterance – was it heard by other people, was there an intention to insult – is decisive for the assessment of there being a criminal act. Because calling someone an ant fucker is generally not enough for a criminal insult …
ant fucker – mierenneuker
Arif Sag and frustrations at Schiphol airport
2012 is the year of 400 years of Dutch-Turkish friendship. There are many official and informal festivities to celebrate this, and one was about to happen last Sunday on 13 May. Famous Turkish folk singer Arif Sag was to perform at the Concert Hall in Amsterdam.
He came for a rehearsal on Thursday and was questioned at Schiphol for his reasons to come. Sag could enter the Netherlands after he apparently could convince the border police of his friendly intentions. It took him at least ten minutes. On Sunday he was again held for questioning at Schiphol. This time it took him at least half an hour. He got so angry that he refused to enter the Netherlands, and returned home, leaving the audience waiting, Turks angry, Dutch ashamed, and the minister of integration Leers defending the Dutch border police. ‘They just did their job correctly and have acted according to the rules’, he said yesterday.
Well well … what a familiar argument …
Youth café’s in Urk
Urk, the small town – once island – traditionally focused on sea fishing
was in the news today with so-called ‘jeugdhonken’ – places for the youth to meet and gather and have fun, but that more and more seem to function as café’s. Illegal café’s that is, because they operate without a license for selling beer and other alcoholics.
The national news showed an industrial area, where the young rent garage boxes for about € 400 a month and restyle them into ‘fancy places’ that probably look like the bars their parents visit.
Their arguments are ‘it is cheap and ‘gezellig’ and there is no fighting like in town’. There are regular visits from police and fire brigade, to check if safety is in order, not to close them down (!). Interestingly, mayor Jaap Kroon (Christian Democrats) is behind the youth. Only if it becomes too large and not a ‘friends meeting’ anymore, he would intervene, he said. And by the way, this is traditional Urk legal culture, as he referred to ‘the kotters [fishing boats] which in the past had always a double function of fishing boat and meeting and drinking place.’
Into the trash can … (or: good consequences from bad situations)
Since the break-up of the Dutch government last Friday, all political parties are back on their own ideological tracks. VVD (liberal) and CDA (christian middle) had to give in on a lot of issues to ‘gedoog’(tolerance)partner PVV (Wilders’ party). Of course, the Netherlands needs to deal with the financial crisis and not having a government is really a bad situation. On the other hand … One of PVV’s wishes was for 500 ‘animal cops’ who had to keep an aye on animal welfare and abuse. They seem to have had their day. The CDA was never a fan of them, as they say today, so the money is better spend on improving working conditions and salary of police officers and for the fight against child trafficking and pornography.
Another ‘symbolic’ hobby horse of the PVV was dual nationality. Into the trash can it went this week. The bill which obliged people to opt for a single nationality only was already set in motion, but it will not be pushed any further now that the exchange money for the support of the PVV is no longer necessary.
Then the proposal to ban the burka from the public sphere. Into the refrigerator, and probably the trash can.
Social workplace (sociale werkplaats)
The social workplace (sociale werkplaats) maybe is something typical for the Netherlands. It is a workplace that mainly hosts people who will not be able to work in a ‘normal’ job, like people with a physical or psychicl disability. These places have been part of Dutch legal culture for decennia. On the one hand it made these people feel valuable because they contributed to society, on the other hand they made themselves productive and they gave something back to society.
The win-win situation has probably come to an end under the right-wing liberal government. The proposal – to be discussed in Parliament – is to make municipalities responsible for these places of work and give them a small(ler) budget. Consequences are most likely that these places will disappear or cut back to the minimum. No more solidarity. Rational calculations make clear it is better to sacrifice fun in life of disabled people against financial gains of a workplace. That is .. if money is your first priority.
Mayor vs. Minister
Mayor of small town Giessenlanden mrs. Els Boot ordered the local police not to cooperate in trying to evict an illegal Afgan asylum seeker. The man had worked (in an administrative function?) at the Afghan Security Agency and had to flee the Taliban regime with his family in 1998. His wife is ill and is allowed to stay with the kids, but the man needs to be evicted because the policy is not to grant asylum to officers of the Security Agency, minister Gert Leers said.
Because of the order of the mayor, Leers has a problem. His authority is defied by mayor. Police has a problem because they are law enforcers caught between contradicting orders. Afghan family has a problem because of integrated kids, a sick unintegrated mother, and an illegal father fearing to be put on a plane. Political parties and asylum seeker organizations all have another ‘example’ of the brute/fair/thelawisthelaw/degrading/inconsistent (strike through what does not conform to your opinion) consequences of the law.
Fighting crime with crown witnesses
There is quite a fuss in Dutch legal circles because the Prosecution seems to have ‘bought’ a witness statement from a crown witness, that is a guy who was once part of the criminal gang he is now testifying against, and who is promised a new identity and protection in return.
Last week it turned out that the Prosecution services has promised to provide protection to Peter de la S., an important witness for the prosecution in some murder cases in circles of organized crime, worth the amount of € 1,4 million over a period of 25 years.
The rule in Dutch legal culture is that witnesses may not be rewarded for their testimony. The Prosecution holds that they did not buy the statement of Peter de la S. The judge still has to decide, but of course the damage lays elsewhere, because the question is what most people will think of this issue. On the one hand some people think that in order to fight large organized crime, unorthodox measures are allowed and so the state is right in buying the statement. On the other hand some people think that a state that does not take the law seriously, cannot be trusted at all. And when the institutions of a state cannot be trusted, it looses legitimacy.
Rutte: “Polygamous marriages do not fit into the Judeo-Christian tradition”
The government wants to combat forced marriages in the Netherlands. The Cabinet today agreed on a bill that is “widely supported”, said Prime Minister Rutte at his weekly press conference.
The bill makes it impossible for minors in the Netherlands to marry (apparently still possible in exceptional cases). Also, marriages between first cousins ??will be forbidden. According to the government in such marriages coercion often plays a role. The marriage can still be concluded when coercion is absent. Furthermore, the possibilities to recognize polygamous marriages conducted abroad will be limited.
The exact wordings of the bill are not yet public. The bill has been sent to the Council of State for the obligatory advice. The bill will become public when it is send to Parliament.
See the press release of the Cabinet (in Dutch).
Seems like we are moving away from the neutral liberal state …
Stereotypes in Court
Research done at the law faculty of the university of Leiden that is published on the web of the Dutch Lawyers Journal NJB today (in Dutch), says that ‘looking foreign’ means you have a five times higher chance to be sent to jail in comparison to looking plain white Dutch. Even more alarming is that the research shows that when you ‘look foreign’ and you do not master the Dutch language well and you need an interpreter in court, you have twenty times higher chance.
Newspapers report that questions were already asked in Parliament ..
Check: there are only about 150 Burqa wearers in NL
NRC Next, the popular quick to read version of national newspaper NRC, everyday has a ‘check’ whether a popular statement or thought is true or not. Today, it was the long resonating figure of ‘there are probably only about 150 burqa wearers in the Netherlands’ – with the implicit assumption ‘why should we bother and make a law about it’? Anyway, according to Annelies Moors, professor in Islamic studies at the University of Amsterdam, the number of women in NL who wear a burqa covering the eyes is about zero. There are probably about a 100 full time niqaab wearers (leaving a slit for the eyes), and about 400 part time wearers.
Based on these figures and estimates, NRC Next states that the popular statement is largely true.
BTW a law that prohibits covering of the face in public is underway …