This paper provides first of all the introduction to this special issue on ‘Legal constraints on the indeterminate control of “dangerous” sex offenders in the community: A European comparative and human rights perspective’. The issue is the outcome of a study that aims at finding the way legal control can not only be an instrument but also be a controller of social control. It is explained what social control is and how the concept of moral panic plays a part in the fact that sex offenders seem to be the folk devils of our time and subsequently pre-eminently the target group of social control at its strongest. Further elaboration of the methodology reveals why focussing on post-sentence (indeterminate) supervision is relevant, as there are hardly any legal constraints in place in comparison with measures of preventive detention. Therefore, a comparative approach within Europe is taken on the basis of country reports from England and Wales, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain. In the second part of the paper, the comparative analysis is presented. Similar shifts in attitudes towards sex offenders have led to legislation concerning frameworks of supervision in all countries but in different ways. Legal constraints on these frameworks are searched for in legal (sentencing) theory, the principles of proportionality and least intrusive means, and human rights, mainly as provided in the European Convention on Human Rights to which all the studied countries are subject. Finally, it is discussed what legal constraints on the control of sex offenders in the community are (to be) in place in European jurisdictions, based on the analysis of commonalities and differences found in the comparison.

A cassation court traditionally has two tasks: a unifying task and a corrective task. The unifying task consists of verifying the internal legality of a lower court’s decision (the correct application and interpretation of the law by the lower courts). The corrective task refers to verifying the external legality of the lower court’s decision. The cassation court must ensure that the decisions of the courts concerned are in conformity with the requirements of proper administration of justice. This article focuses on the following question: is it necessary that the Belgian Council of State, acting in the capacity of a cassation court, performs both traditional tasks (corrective and unifying)? This is by no means self-evident, given the specific judicial structure in which the Belgian Council of State operates.

This article argues that the notion of norm images does more justice to the complexity of the police organization. The notion of ‘police culture’ is heavily criticized for its homogenizing tendencies, monolithic connotations and stereotypical and negative evaluation of police work. Norm images have an analytical value, because (1) the images are contextualized within and connected to the rule of law, (2) the images are sufficiently analytically flexible for a situational and relational interpretation of the cultural processes within the police organization, and (3) the notion theoretically presupposes the resistance strategies of social actors against the norm images. The article illustrates the theoretical value of norm images by focusing on the dominant images of the ‘trustworthy’, ‘neutral’ and ‘loyal’ police officer.

Tot voor kort was de hamvraag voor clementieverzoekers wat de precieze juridische status was van het ECN-clementieregelingsmodel van 2006 en welke precieze relatie een hoofdclementieverzoek bij de Commissie en een beknopt verzoek bij een nationale mededingingsautoriteit hebben. Op deze vragen en meer geeft het Hof van Justitie antwoord in het DHL-arrest. In deze bijdrage worden het DHL-arrest en de implicaties daarvan voor de clementiepraktijk besproken. Tevens komen het relevante juridische kader en het feitencomplex aan bod. Auteur pleit in zijn conclusie voor een in meer of mindere mate gecentraliseerd Europees clementieprogramma.

The Danish Supreme Court has ruled that a provision in a collective agreement allowing employers to pay reduced allowances for working in the evenings, on nights and at weekends to employees under the age of 25 in full-time education and working no more than 15 hours a week was not in conflict with the Danish Anti-Discrimination Act since it was justified by a legitimate aim.

In dit arrest geeft het Hof van Justitie uitleg over artikel 24 lid 2 van Richtlijn 2004/38/EG. Deze bepaling is een uitzondering op het verbod van discriminatie op grond van nationaliteit voor studiebeurzen en studieleningen voor levensonderhoud. Uit het eerdere arrest Commissie/Oostenrijk blijkt dat niet alle steun aan studenten kan worden gekwalificeerd als een studiebeurs of een studielening in de zin van deze bepaling. In het onderhavige arrest oordeelt het Hof van Justitie dat de Nederlandse studenten-OV er wel onder valt, omdat die de kenmerken vertoont van en verwant is aan ofwel een studiebeurs ofwel een studielening.
HvJ 2 juni 2016, zaak C-233/14, Commissie/Nederland (studenten OV), ECLI:EU:C:2016:396.

Dit artikel beoogt in kaart te brengen wat er met de invoering van het programma Kwaliteit en Innovatie rechtspraak (KEI) en de daarbij horende wijzigingen in het Wetboek van Burgerlijke Rechtsvorderingen al dan niet verandert in het appelprocesrecht.

The contribution assesses Germany’s better regulation system as quality assurance system. At first, the paper outlines the development of the system over the last years and describes its main characteristics. The introduction of the Nationaler Normenkontrollrat (National Regulatory Control Council) in 2006 can be seen as a cornerstone in this respect. The competency of the National Regulatory Control Council was extended in 2011 and a new concept of cost measurement of regulatory costs - compliance costs - was introduced. The new concept captures not only the costs arising from information obligations, but all compliance costs of a regulation. Secondly, the paper discusses the challenges to the better regulation system, in particular, those due to Germany’s federal structure providing in most legislative areas for a separation of actual law making at the federal level and execution of laws by the German Länder (and their municipalities).

In contrast with the critical, innovative ideas developed between the 1960s and the 1980s regarding the way we deal with illegal drugs in our societies, the current dominant approaches frame the issue of drugs as a matter of crime, public order, and control. Pleasurable substances have always existed and always will, and so the efforts to cope with them. However, we witness today remarkable developments at local, national and international levels in the fields of drug policies (on cannabis for example), drug trafficking (new routes, new actors) and drug use (new substances, new drug cultures), all of which deserve our attention and push us to think beyond the repressive paradigm. This contribution, which also serves as an introduction for this special issue of ToCC on drugs, aims to present an overview of the main developments taking place, and challenges ahead, within the three above-mentioned fields. There are new markets and trends in the use of legal and illegal pleasurable substances, particularly regarding synthetic drugs (amphetamines, methamphetamines and new psychoactive substances or NPS), tobacco and alcohol. Illegal drugs are supplied from changing countries and through new routes, while retailing increasingly takes place through the so-called cryptomarkets (online). Effective policies are rendered impossible by the fundamental repression paradox: the more intensive and effective the repression, the larger the profits of drug traffickers and the balloon effects (displacement). Despite the harms and negative effects of repressive policies have extensively been documented, a societal debate towards the regulation of illegal drugs is hindered by the use of false dichotomies or presuppositions, by the use of ethical or moral appeals, or by lack of political will. Also the debate in the media is static, superficial and full of clichés. Scientific research on drugs also follows specific agendas and it is focussed on particular aspects of the problem. Changes to end the ‘war on drugs’, certainly regarding cannabis, are however underway in many places at local and national level (Uruguay, Canada, US, Spain, etc.), this despite UN bureaucracies and international conventions that fiercely resist those changes.

Despite the fact that Peter Cohen has not written about drugs for the past 10 years, he remains one of the most influential and radical thinkers and researchers in the Netherlands in the field of drug use and drug policy. The former director of the CEDRO (Centrum voor Drugsonderzoek) at the University of Amsterdam is certainly a ‘significant other’ in the European drug landscape as he challenged, in the 1980s and 1990s, mainstream views and discourses on drugs held by the political, academic and health service establishments. In this interview we first discuss with him some of the key life events and intellectual sources that shaped his early choices first as student and later as young researcher, illustrating why and how he came to study drugs and remained at the university. Further, we focus on Cohen’s particular relation with the Amsterdam political elite in the 80s, which allowed him to develop the first large-scale studies in the Netherlands on different types of drug users. He further expands on his critique to the way in which drug use was at the time socially constructed in discourse and practice. During the second part of the 1990s, a new generation of politicians and managers (local and national government, but also at universities), changed on the one hand the political agenda about drugs, and imposed on the other serious limitations to conduct innovative research within the university. He finally explains some of his key ideas about the ways in which drug policies and interventions resemble religious wars and crusades, his growing disenchantment with present developments at European level, and he reflects on the future of drugs commenting on the present attempts to regulate cannabis.