In this article Marc Cools discusses work and life of the Belgian lawyer and criminologist Chris Eliaerts. The article is based on an interview the author conducted with Eliaerts as well as his published work. The article discusses in particular themes such as teaching and research in criminology at VU Brussels in particular and Belgium in general.

Auteurs onderzoeken de praktijk van vergoeding van kosten voor versterkingsmaatregelen in nieuwbouwprojecten. Zij analyseren de legitimiteit van de daarvoor in het leven geroepen Nieuwbouwregeling. Verder bespreken auteurs waar die regeling verbeterd zou kunnen worden in het licht van de aankomende nieuwe regeling die door de overheid zal worden uitgevoerd.

The Family Justice Centers are an international model where victims of domestic violence and child abuse can find all help needed under one roof. The FJCs are a collaboration of police, justice, welfare, help centers and authorities. The main target is empowering survivors of violence.
The development of the FJC-model is situated in an evolution of the approach of these forms of violence, starting with the recognition of violence against women and child abuse towards a multidisciplinary and collaborative model starting from the needs of survivors of violence. The FJC-model is explained from a field worker point of view and further developments and expected evolutions are mentioned.

In the 19th century in many Western states, the close relationship between Church and State came to an end and the Roman Catholic Church developed into a major and active player on social and educational level in society separate from the State.
This was due, on the one hand, to the constitutional changes in the Western states from the end of the 18th century, which led to the gradual introduction of the formal principle of separation of Church and State. On the other hand, it was a result of the search for a new position of the Roman Catholic Church in society that also influenced the theological reflection of the Church on society.
The ecclesiastical reflection on the ideal relationship between Church and State took shape in the course of this process in the Ius Publicum Ecclesiasticum. The ecclesiastical view on the relationship between believers/citizens, society and State simultaneously took shape in Catholic social doctrine, which today still offers a model for modern society. In Catholic social doctrine, the believer/citizen is the connecting element between Church and State in a secular society. The ‘state doctrine’ of the Catholic Church is presented in Catholic social doctrine as an ideal image of the democratic constitutional state in which man is central and forms the central link between Church, society and secular State.

The ADR Act of 18 June 2018 provides for an insertion into the ‘Gerechtelijk Wetboek’ (Judicial Code), entitled ‘Collaboratieve onderhandelingen’ (Collaborative Negotiations), which came into force on 1 January 2019.

For quite some years now, crimes of ‘the powerful’ have been studied by criminologists. While researching crimes of ‘the powerful’, researchers aim to maintain and safeguard their integrity and ethics. However, there seems to be a friction between, on the one hand, ethics of the researchers themselves and on the other hand, ethics (policies) of universities. Obviously, not only do they have to justify their actions and decisions to themselves and ‘science’ as a whole, they must justify their research to ethics committees (EC’s) of universities. It could result in complex and difficult situations when researchers suspect that EC’s themselves may be instruments and products of the powerful groups they are studying. In that case, EC’s might undermine ethics and research integrity themselves. What do certain EC- ‘conditions’ look like for research ethics and to which extent do they have to be adjusted or reconsidered when criminologists are researching ‘the powerful’? The key question that will be answered in this contribution is as follows: how can criminologist (re)act ethically responsibly when confronted with (un)ethical committees? To answer this and other relevant questions, after reviewing literature, we reflect on a biographical study of a legal arms trader. We then elaborate on the ‘ethics creep’ (Haggerty, 2004) that seems to haunt social sciences nowadays.

De Venice Commission heeft zich sinds 1990 ontwikkeld tot een gezaghebbende constitutioneel raadgever met betrekking tot de verenigbaarheid van (grond)wetgeving met de beginselen van de rule of law, mensenrechten en democratie voor de lidstaten van de Raad van Europa. Besproken wordt wat de Commissie is, wat zij doet en hoe zij dat doet. Vervolgens wordt ingegaan op de maatstaven die zij hanteert, en de specifieke uitdagingen die haar internationale positie, mede gezien het opkomend populisme en het spanningsveld tussen democratie en rechtsstaat, met zich brengen voor de mate van terughoudendheid in haar oordeelsvorming. Daarbij wordt specifiek ingegaan op de ‘casus Polen’.

The article is a plea to reconsider the new impetus that the second Vatican council in the catholic church has brought about, and to give it shape in the ecclesiastical administration of the catholic church. After a period of strong renewal this movement seems to be evaporated in the Netherlands, whereas this council and the code of 1983 have a lot of opportunities to offer. On the basis of a number of concrete examples of administrative reforms that Pope Francis and some of the newly appointed bishops have realized, the author offers some concrete proposals.

This article analyses the relation between Islam, politics and citizenship. It analyses three currents within Islam: Salafism, Islamism, and modernism. The central argument is that most modern Islamic currents do not have a concept of politics as an independent ‘field’ where compromises can be made concerning societal problems. The only current that provide the space for a pluriform, open political debate is Islamic modernism. Through its humanism and the centrality of the common good and not the text, modernism embraces not only the concept of politics as free space but also the concept of active citizenship.

Since intelligence and espionage are so secret by nature, discussing it proves to be rather difficult. Debates about intelligence therefore tend to be fought with metaphors. Using Johnson’s and Lakoff’s idea that metaphors provide conceptual frameworks and thus have real-world effects, as well as Butler’s idea of performative power, this article has explored the most widely used metaphors in Dutch intelligence history. The Dutch security services have been depicted, in a wide variety of images, broadly as remnants of the past (ruins or ‘anachronisms’), as spies on wooden shoes, as a stowaway of democracy, and as a state within the state. Since the civil servants and politicians almost always felt the need to respond to these metaphors, by providing explanation, nuance, and facts – or by introducing a competing metaphor – it is argued that these metaphors have real-world effects, showing how the security service was positioned in politics and society.

Witwassen en deelname aan een criminele organisatie worden in de literatuur naar voren gebracht als mogelijke opties om indirecte betrokkenheid van Nederlandse ondernemingen bij ernstige mensenrechtenschendingen te redresseren. In deze bijdrage worden die mogelijkheden nader geanalyseerd aan de hand van een concrete casus: de vermeende betrokkenheid van de Rabobank bij witwasactiviteiten voor de Mexicaanse drugskartels in de VS. De aangifte die door SMX Collective is gedaan tegen de bank roept namelijk diverse juridisch interessante vragen op over toerekening in concernverhoudingen; een onderwerp dat tot op heden relatief onderbelicht is gebleven in literatuur en jurisprudentie en derhalve aandacht verdient.

This article analyses whether the local youth worker can operate on the intersection of social welfare and signalling of extremism. Although it is a rare phenomenon, there is a clear message from the government to watch out for the first signs of deviant behavior and unacceptable behavior. However, shouldn’t we ask ourselves whether youth workers are adequately equipped at local level to signal threat? The qualitative results show that in daily practice there is a lack of clear standards which make terminology for social professionals not easily distinguished. In addition their opinion depends largely on their own intuition regarding the issues. This can create side effects which form a risk that the local terrorism policy does not have the intended effect.

De auteur gaat in op de staatsrechtelijke voorwaarden en beperkingen voor delegatie van regelgevende bevoegdheid in België. Op het eerste gezicht lijkt dit vrij streng geregeld, maar bij nadere beschouwing blijkt dat er in de praktijk toch de nodige ruimte is voor delegatie van regelgevende bevoegdheid. Dit kan ten eerste historisch worden verklaard, omdat de Raad van State en het Grondwettelijk Hof nog niet heel lang bestaan. Ten tweede is het Grondwettelijk Hof bij een flink aantal onderwerpen betreffende delegatie vrijwillig teruggetreden, zodat in die gevallen geen constitutionele toetsing plaatsvindt. Ten derde staat ook het parlement delegatie ruimhartig toe. Dat is waarschijnlijk een bewuste keuze, omdat de hoeveelheid wetgeving die door het parlement moet worden beoordeeld zodanige proporties zou aannemen, dat het parlement zijn controlerende rol in dat opzicht niet langer waar zou kunnen maken. Dit alles doet wel de vraag rijzen wat de toegevoegde waarde is van een uitgebreide theoretische constructie omtrent de toelaatbaarheid van delegatie.

Recently the Dutch parliament passed a law that provides the subsidy for religious and humanist education in state schools. The law on primary education gives to the parents the right to ask for it. Religious education in state schools exists in the Netherlands since the beginning of the 19th century, optional and taught by representatives of the church. So it is appropriate for the state school which wish to be a school for everyone. And public funding is appropriate in the Dutch education system.

Auteurs verkennen aan de hand van jurisprudentie of de burgerlijke rechter mogelijk meer materiële rechtsbescherming bij bestemmingsplangeschillen kan bieden dan de bestuursrechter. Daarbij kijken zij niet alleen naar het verleden en heden, maar ook naar de toekomst. Zij betogen dat als onder de Omgevingswet meer globale omgevingsplannen worden vastgesteld, de burgerlijke rechter wel eens een effectievere rechtsbescherming aan gehinderden zou kunnen bieden.

Deze bijdrage beoogt een overzicht te bieden van relevante actuele ontwikkelingen op het terrein van transparantie van het wetgevingsproces in Nederland. Dit naar aanleiding van de op 24 februari 2017 uitgebrachte kabinetsnotitie over dit onderwerp. Belangrijke dilemma’s zijn het vinden van een balans tussen het belang van transparantie en het belang van beleidsintimiteit en het feit dat transparantie tijd en geld kost. In deze bijdrage wordt ingegaan op enkele specifieke onderwerpen die in de kabinetsnotitie wel – en in één geval juist niet – zijn belicht: de ‘lobbyparagraaf’ in de toelichting bij wettelijke regelingen, internetconsultatie, de ‘wetgevingskalender’ en transparantie in de Raad-van-State-fase.

The probation service gives advice to the court tens of thousands of time each year, coordinates tens of thousands of community service orders, and supervises tens of thousands of offenders. This is done professionally and takes place without much incidents or problems. However, the probation is not very well known to the general public. The identity of probation is also ambiguous and therefore not strong. There is less appreciation for the probation than they deserve. This can be met by making the probation service responsible for the implementation of all community-based sanctions (suspended sentences and other conditional modalities and community service orders), similar to the responsibility of the prison system for custodial sanctions and measures. Secondly, by differentiation in the nature and intensity of activities. Many probation clients do well. They represent only a low risk, and probation involvement may be limited. For other clients, more is needed: more activities, greater intensity and focus on criminogenic needs. It is proposed to distinguish between probation and probation plus. In both, probation supervision and community service are at the center, but the plus version is emphatically more focused on rehabilitation and reintegration, and thus on minimizing recidivism. This requires more efforts by the probation service. It also requires adapting the organization: one probation organization that is accountable and responsible for the implementation of community-based sanctions, but with the possibility to outsource work if special expertise and special activities are required.

Superdiverse neighborhoods are understood as challenges; as potential ghetto’s in need for a better social mix. In this paper, ethnographic linguistic landscape analysis (ELLA) is used to study the effects of the public-private city renewal policies. ELLA not only enables a distributional image of ‘het Rabot’, a small neighborhood in the pheriphery of Ghent in Belgium, but also to sketch a stratigraphy. The ideology of social mix, in combination with the inter-urban competition for tourists and middle class inhabitants results in the hipsterification of the neighborhood. The net effect, is a disruptive influx of a creative class.

Bij de grondwetsherziening van 1983 zijn sociale grondrechten in de Grondwet opgenomen. Van een aantal onderwerpen, als werkgelegenheid, volksgezondheid en leefmilieu, is toen vastgesteld dat zij een ‘voorwerp van zorg’ van de overheid zijn. Zij leggen inspanningsverplichtingen op aan de overheid. In deze bijdrage staat de vraag centraal of, en zo ja op welke wijze, de wetgever gevolg heeft gegeven aan de grondwettelijk verankerde sociaal grondrechtelijke zorgplichten, alsmede welke consequenties uit de desbetreffende bevindingen kunnen worden getrokken. De bijdrage is aldus een eerste aanzet voor een evaluatieonderzoek naar de gevolgen van de introductie van sociale grondrechten voor de wetgevingspraktijk. Het lijkt erop dat deze gevolgen gering zijn. Het lijkt er echter ook op dat het belang van sociale grondrechten wel toeneemt en dat dit voornamelijk wordt gestimuleerd door andere actoren dan de wetgever zelf.