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The district court in the Hague has annulled the area bans imposed in 2020 on imam Fawaz Jneid. According to the court, the reasoning was insufficient to conclude that the presence of mr. Jneid in the banned areas posed such a danger to national security that an area ban was necessary.
The Dutch temporary law administrative measures against terrorism allows for the minister of Justice and Security to impose an area ban even if no criminal acts have been committed. Although the ban has a time limit of six months, it can be indefinitely extended. In 2017, the minister first imposed an area ban on mr. Jneid; this is now the subject of a case at the European Court of Human Rights. The second, third and fourth extention are currently subject of a case in front of the Council of State. The fifth and sixth extention have been annulled by this decision of the court of the Hague. The minister can appeal the decision.
Mr. Jneid is represented by Tamara Buruma and Tom de Boer.
Yesterday, the Dutch TV show Zembla broadcasted a short documentary about the case of the fraudulent adoption of Dilani Butink. Dilani holds the adoption agency Kind en Toekomst, as well as the Dutch State responsible for her fraudulent adoption. Dilani is represented in this case by Lisa-Marie Komp who was also interview by Zembla. The documentary can be found here.
For earlier reports about this case, see here.
Lawyer Michiel Pestman has been appointed as a lecturer at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law for the first semester of 2021. UCLA School of Law is one of the most prestigious universities in de world. Michiel Pestman will be teaching the Food Law and Policy Clinic. Michiel Pestman moved to LA together with his family in 2008. He is still a partner at our firm and has been working on several cases since his leave. Michiel will continue this work in additition to his position as a lecturer.
More information about Michiel and his work for UCLA School of Law can be found through the website of UCLA.
In today's judgment, the EU Court of Justice ruled in a case regarding two visa application rejections by the Netherlands.
An Egyptian citizen and a Syrian citizen who lives in Saudi-Arabia applied for Schengen visa to visit family members residing in the Netherlands. However, their applications were rejected based on one of the standard grounds of the assessment form (threat to the public order, national security, public health or the international relations of an EU Member-State). The visa application rejections were the result of respectively Hungary’s and Germany’s objections, countries consulted by the Dutch authorities beforehand under the Visa code procedure. Despite that, the assessment form did not clarify which State(s) objected nor did the form explain which rejection ground was applicable to them. Furthermore, the assessment form did not clarify on which grounds the applicants allegedly formed a threat.
To summarise, the EU Court of Justice ruled that the Netherlands should disclose which State(s) is (are) objecting in cases where a visa is rejected if that rejection follows from another EU State’s objections. Also, the exact reasons of the rejection should be expressed. Finally, the Netherlands must direct the applicant to the relevant authorities (of other Member States) where the applicant can object to the decision or concerns expressed by that Member State.
The judgment is not published yet, the press release is available here.
Lawyer Marq Wijngaarden defended K.A. in this case, who is one of the two applicants in this procedure.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) will consider the merits of the complaint filed by imam Fawaz Jneid against the Government of the Netherlands. The ECtHR has announced the communication of the complaint and the focus of its examination on its website (see here).
Background of the case
Jneid submitted the complaint in response to an area ban imposed on him on 15 August 2017 by the Minister of Justice and Security. He was denied access to two neighbourhoods in The Hague, the Schilderswijk and Transvaal, for half a year. Jneid was said to encourage young people in these neighbourhoods to jihadist violence in his lectures. The measure is based on the Temporary Administrative Measures Against Counterterrorism Act (Tijdelijke wet bestuurlijke maatregelen terrorismebestrijding – ‘Twbmt’).
The measure against Jneid and the judgments of the District Court and the Council of State have led to criticism in the press and amongst scholars, who concluded that his fundamental rights were insufficiently guaranteed. In particular it has been emphasized that it is unclear which behaviours do and do not fall within the scope of the Twbmt. In addition, criticism has been expressed about the fact that far-reaching measures have been imposed outside the criminal law framework and without the requisite legal guarantees and standards of proof. The statements that led to the imposition of the area ban do not call for violence or terrorism – Jneid has renounced violence and terrorism on several occasions – and the Public Prosecutor examined the statements and did not find them to be punishable. In addition, statements he made before the entry into force of the Twbmt in 2010 have also been held against him. As such, it had not been foreseeable for Jneid that his constitutional rights would be restricted in this way.
Jneid challenged the measure before the District Court of The Hague and the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State, which rejected his appeal (see here and here). As a result, Jneid had no other option than to submit the case to the ECtHR.
ECtHR case and pending national procedures
The ECtHR has made clear that its examination will focus on the alleged violations of the right to freedom of religion (Article 9 ECHR), freedom of speech (Article 10 ECHR) and freedom of movement (Article 2 Protocol 4 to the ECHR). In this context, the ECHR will also consider the legislative basis of the measure.
Since the first imposition of the administrative measure in 2017, the measure has been extended every six months and runs consecutively for more than three years. In contrast to a criminal sanction it is completely unclear when and on which conditions the measure will end. To end the continuation of the measure, Jneid is forced to start a new administrative procedure against every extension (six thus far). At this moment, several national procedures against the measure are pending simultaneously.
Mr. Jneid is represented in these proceedings by lawyers Tom de Boer and Tamara Buruma.
See previous news updates on this case.
Six former child slaves have filed a case in the United States against Nestlé, one of the largest chocolate producers in the world. Nestlé is accused of knowingly helping to perpetuate child slavery in the Ivory Coast. The complainants in the case were forced to work in the Ivory Coast on cocoa plantations that also supplied Nestlé. They were then between twelve and fourteen years old. During their imprisonment, the child slaves had to work more than 12 hours a day, without any compensation, for at least six days a week. They were whipped if they didn't work hard enough. At night the children were locked up in small huts where they had to sleep on the ground. Armed men prevented the children from escaping. One of the former child slaves in the case was caught in an escape attempt and tortured by the guards, resulting in permanent injury.
The case against Nestlé will be heard by the Supreme Court on December 1st. The central question is whether the Alien Tort Statute in the United States also applies to corporations, and to acts that did not take place on American soil. Prof. Göran Sluiter and Michiel Pestman have submitted an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court with a number of international lawyers, in support of the former child slaves.
For more information about this case and the Amicus Brief see:
On 22 October 2020, lawyer Lisa-Marie Komp obtained her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam with the dissertation 'Border Deaths at Sea under the Right to Life in the European Convention on Human Rights'.
On behalf of all her colleagues at Prakken d'Oliveira, chapeau!
Read more about her dissertation here.
[Photo: Lisa-Marie Komp; PrdO]
Today, the district court sustained an appeal that had been filed by Bürgerintiative Saubere Luft from Emden, the Vereniging Zuivere Energie and Mobilisation against the license for new waste incineration by EEW in Delfzijl, one of the largest in the Netherlands, that incinerates waste from the Netherlands and England.
Waste incineration is not only non-sustainable because incinerated waste cannot be reused, it also produces harmful nitrogen, e.g. in the Wadden Sea and the Ems Dollard.
Apart from the existing waste incineration, EEW has also built a new incineration line in order to incinerate even more waste. The intention is to increase EEW’s capacity from 384,000 tons of waste to 576,000 tons. This expansion will result in even more waste supply. A lot of waste is brought in from England by ship. This will result in harmful nitrogen on the Wadden Sea, the Wadden Islands and in Dutch and German nature reserves. As a result of the nuisance caused by nitrogen, many protected nature areas in the Netherlands and Germany are not doing well.
The province of Groningen agreed to the expansion on the basis of an old license that was issued in 2007. The district court held that this old license had expired years ago and that new waste incineration could not be added to it.
The clients are represented by Bondine Kloostra.
Mr. Al-Showaikh, a client of lawyer Flip Schüller, was deported to Bahrein late 2018 by the Dutch authorities (Immigration Department; IND), following a failed asylum procedure. This happened even though in his asylum application, he had explained that he was wanted by the Bahraini authorities because of his activism and that of his brother and ran a great risk of persecution, torture and other violations of his human rights. Upon arrival in Bahrein, the risks he had asserted became an immediate reality. Al-Showaikh was arrested straight away, tortured, subjected to a brief show trial and is currently serving a lifelong prison sentence under inhuman conditions in a Bahraini prison.
Today, with the consent of our client's family members, the reports by the Inspectorate for Justice & Security have been made public; this because State Secretary Broekers-Knol had informed the Second Chamber of Parliament that she would not make them public herself. Given the circumstances of this specific case however, it would indeed have been appropriate for the State Secretary to make the reports public, particularly because the family had requested her to do so. They want transparency. After Dutch newspaper NRC apparently read the reports and published an article that was partially based on them today (see below), the family was consulted. In light of these developments, there is no reason to treat the reports as confidential anymore. Now the Second Chamber of Parliament can openly debate this case with the State Secretary.
The reports describe the factual course of events with regard to Al-Showaikh's asylum application and his subsequent expulsion to Bahrain, but give no qualification or approval of the stated facts. At the same, the account of the facts clearly shows that the IND was insufficiently aware of the implications of the grounds for asylum due to a lack of investigation. The real risk of persecution and/or inhuman treatment would have been foreseeable - as the Dutch embassy later confirmed - had the IND done a more thorough job. Now, our client is serving life in prison after a flagrantly unfair (criminal) trial, within the context of which his confession was extracted through torture. The reports form an important contribution to the proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights, because they show that the parties do not substantially disagree about the events that took place in the Netherlands.
Annexes
See also (in Dutch):
[Photo: the ECtHR in Strassbourg]
On 29 September 2020 the district court of The Hague rendered its final verdict in the case that Malik Lambogo initiated in 2016 against the State of the Netherlands about the death of his father Andi Abubakar Lambogo. In 2019, the district court had already dismissed the State’s argument that the case was out of time, but it had also held that the facts were insufficiently established (available in Dutch: here). In this final verdict, and on the basis of additional evidence, the district court was able to rule:
[Freely translated] ‘[Par. 3.1] [T]hat Dutch soldiers (i) killed A.A. Lambogo in the first half of March 1947, while A.A. Lambogo was detained after being wounded during a confrontation with Dutch soldiers, (ii) decapitated A.A. Lambogo and put his head on display at the local market (pasar) of the village Enrekang (abuse of corpse) and (iii) forced the captured soldiers from A.A. Lambogo’s battalion to kiss the decapitated head of their commander (violating the remains of A.A. Lambogo).’
The additional evidence consisted i.a. of additional literary sources from Indonesia that document the circumstances of the death of A.A. Lambogo. Additionally, two witnesses who could attest to the ghastly events testified before the district court of The Hague via video-link. One witness was able to confirm, based on his own observations, that A.A. Lambogo’s head had been put on display at the local market. The other witness was in A.A. Lambogo’s group and witnessed the wounding and capture of A.A. Lambogo by Dutch soldiers. That witness was also captured himself. Within days he was brought to the market at Enrekang, where Dutch soldiers forced him to kiss A.A. Lambogo’s head.
With this final verdict, the facts concerning the death of our client’s father have now also been confirmed and acknowledged by the court. However, at present the compensation he is eligible for is very low. The reason for this is that old Dutch law as it applied in 1947, is applicable in this case. On the basis of that law, the damages that are recoverable in court are limited to loss of income and only insofar as there was an actual need for that income. According to the law in 1947, surviving relatives were not eligible for immaterial damages and even legal interest only started to run from the moment that a claim to it was announced (in this case: in the summons to court). Concretely this means that our client, as the son of his father, is merely eligible for 12% of the amount in lost income that would have gone to his mother, and only until she remarried or until he was able to provide for himself either by reaching the age of majority or by getting married. Lambogo's mother never remarried and he married in 1963; as such he is eligible for the aforementioned pecuniary damages until that year. In its final verdict, the court acknowledged the fact that the amount in damages that can be awarded on the basis of the applicable law is in no proportion to the pain and suffering of our client.
Our client does have a prospect of a more decent amount in compensation. Possibly, he may be eligible for (additional) compensation in future on the basis of an out-of-court settlement scheme. In 2013, the State announced a settlement scheme of this kind for widows of summarily executed men. This scheme, known in Dutch as ‘de Bekendmaking’, was extended until 2021 last year (see here, in Dutch). Last summer, the State said that it would also adopt an out-of-court settlement scheme for the children of summarily executed men. No further details are known as of yet, but it is expected that it will be comparable to the 2013-‘Bekendmaking’ for the widows. Widows of summarily executed men whose claims were awarded by the district court of The Hague in March (see here), received the compensation amount offered to widows on the basis of the out-of-court settlement scheme afterwards as well.
Lawyers Brechtje Vossenberg and Liesbeth Zegveld represent Lambogo in this case.
See also (in Dutch):
Previously
Last night, Barbara van Straaten was one of the speakers at the theme night 'The Night of Dictatorship' that was organised by De Balie in Amsterdam. Barbara participated in the programme on 'The Long Arm of Teheran' which addressed the influence and repression of Iran on Iranian dissidents living in the Netherlands. She was asked because of her role as the lawyer of the family of Mola Nissi who was killed in The Hague in 2017. The complete programme can be viewed here (in Dutch).
On Tuesday afternoon 8 September 2020, by order of the Public Prosecutor, the police department’s International Crimes Division arrested C.N., a Dutchman of Rwandese descent, and brought him to police station. This took place following a request from the Rwandese authorities, which requested the extradition of C.N. in 2010 and 2019. In Rwanda, C.N. has been accused of participating in the 1994-genocide. The Public Prosecutor had assumed that C.N.’s Dutch citizenship had been revoked.
C.N. was released the next morning; the extradition process was stopped before it had even begun. As it turned out, the question of C.N.’s Dutch citizenship was the subject of an ongoing procedure that had commenced in 2012. The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (‘IND’) had misinformed the Public Prosecutor. Dutch nationals cannot be extradited to Rwanda.
C.N. is a known board member of the Rwandese opposition in exile. The regime in Rwanda battles its opposition using both legal and illegal means; assassinations and disappearances of opponents both in Rwanda and abroad have been attributed to the Kagame-regime on multiple occasions. The chairwoman of FDU-Inkingi, the party of which C.N. is board member, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for noting in public that may Hutu’s were killed during the genocide in 1994.
C.N. denies all allegations against him. Hij asserts that the sole purpose of these accusations is to make it impossible for him to function as an opponent and criticaster of the Kagame-regime, the silence him and to make his family live in fear and insecurity. Sooner or later, all critics of Kagame meet this fate.
C.N. is represented in his procedure by lawyer Marq Wijngaarden.
On Wednesday 8 September 2020 Mr. Basim Razzo and the Dutch Minister of Defense (Bijleveld) came to an agreement about the amount in damages that the State of the Netherlands would pay to Razzo. In September 2015, Dutch F16's bombed his home in Mosul and the adjacent home of his brother. Razzo lost his wife, daughter, brother and nephew in that bombardment; he himself was seriously injured and suffers from chronic health problems as a result of the bombardment. The bombardment took place on the basis of incorrect intel, as the Dutch State has since acknowledged.
Razzo sent the State a notification of liability in March of this year. The State does not accept liability, but will compensate him. In that respect, the Minister of Defense has indicated that it is a 'voluntary compensation in light of the enormity of the human suffering that has been inflicted upon Mr. Razzo'. In the interest of his safety and that of his family, no comments will be made about the amount in damages Razzo will receive. He is very pleased with the outcome and is happy that the Netherlands was quick to offer him compensation. This will allow him to close this case and get back to his life.
Aside from compensation, the State has also drawn up a letter upon Razzo's request in which his name is cleared. In the letter, the State writes that it has no information that connects Razzo and/or his relatives to IS.
Razzo was represented in this case by lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld. She too was very surprised that the State is so quick to compensate her client for his loss.
See also (in Dutch and English)
Previously
Moroccan victims of Dutch politician Geert Wilders' statements about 'fewer Moroccans' in period around the elections in March 2014 are both satisfied and disappointed about the judgment of the Appeals Court of The Hague, rendered on 4 September 2020. Lawyers Barbara van Straaten and Göran Sluiter represent various Moroccan victims as injured parties in this long criminal trial. Sluiter:
"Our clients are satisfied that the Court has held that the Public Prosecutor's Office's case was not inadmissible and that Wilders was guilty of the crime of group-defamation when he made his statements about 'fewer Moroccans'. This part of the verdict is an important and powerful signal in the fight against racism and discrimination. However, our clients are disappointed with and amazed about three other parts of the verdict.
First, the Appeals Court wrongly acquitted Wilders of incitement to discrimination and/or hatred. This acquittal is barely motivated and ignores the law, in particular the jurisprudence of the Dutch Supreme Court, on this point.
Second, the Appeals Court did not impose a penalty on Wilders, which is something that cannot be reconciled with the grave nature of the facts at issue.
Thirdly, and contrary to case law of the Dutch Supreme Court on this point, the Appeals Court held that out clients’ claims for damages would impose a disproportionate burden on the criminal proceedings, and declared them inadmissible on those grounds.
Our clients are hopeful that these errors will be remedied in the event of a cassation appeal lodged by the Public Prosecutor's Office or the accused."
Previously
On Wednesday 9 September at 10:00 AM the distrtict court of The Hague will deliver its judgment in the case filed by Dilani Butink against the State of the Netherlands and the adoption agency because of her unlawful adoption from Sri Lanka. This is the first time that a Dutch court will deliver judgment in a complaint filed by an unlawfully adopted person against the Dutch State and an adoption agency. Dilani Butink is represented in these proceedings by Lisa-Marie Komp.
Unfortunately the hearing is not open to the general public due to special measures taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Press is allowed, and must register with the public relations department of the district Court of The Hague. Those who are not allowed entry to the hearing can follow it via a livestream. The link to the livestream will be published on this site.
On 20 May 2020, the Dutch news show Zembla published a report about the trial hearing about this case at the District Court of The Hague (link in photo):
Previously: