Samenvatting

Dutch politicians sometimes express their opinion on legal cases that are sub judice. That means that they give their view on a court case where no decision has yet been taken by the judge. To find out why politicians do that, we have sent a questionnaire to members of parliament in the Netherlands. They were asked to score fifty theorems and their answers were grouped in five attitudes. Our statistical analysis shows that a lack of faith in judges leads to a desire to control the judge. Interference with the judicial process is further stimulated when politicians want to make themselves seen in the media. Politicians also appear to be more inclined to interfere when they don’t find the separation of powers that important. We found that many politicians are critical of judges, but also that most of them have a lot of confidence in the judge. Interference will remain infrequent.