Dit artikel beschrijft de gevolgen van de coronacrisis in het huurrecht bij bedrijfsruimte en bij woonruimte. Bij bedrijfsruimte zijn er juridische escapes voor de huurder, die worden gevonden in de gebrekenregeling, maar vooral in de onvoorziene omstandigheden. Huurders van woonruimte moeten het hebben van coulance en subsidies.

De mededingingsregels, waaronder de staatssteunregels, bieden ruimte aan overheden en ondernemingen om de ingrijpende economische gevolgen als gevolg van de Covid-19-crisis op te vangen. In tijdelijke kaders heeft de Europese Commissie uiteengezet welke bijzondere steunmaatregelen en welke samenwerkingsvormen tussen concurrerende ondernemingen zijn toegestaan. Om snel ingrijpen mogelijk te maken heeft de Commissie voorzien in flexibele procedures die op korte termijn rechtszekerheid bieden. In deze bijdrage bespreken wij de specifieke invulling van de mededingingsregels in de tijdelijke kaders en gaan wij in op de vraag wat de tijdelijke materiële en procedurele flexibiliteit betekent voor de toekomst van deze regels.

In the Netherlands, immigration detention is classified under administrative law. More precisely: it is a form of administrative coercion. But immigration detention is also deprivation of liberty, or a habeas corpus measure. This makes it the most far-reaching form of administrative coercion you can think of. The regime and house rules of immigration detention differ just a little from those of criminal deprivation of liberty. The draft bill on the Return and Detention Act provides some improvements. For asylum seekers that cause nuisance, there is the Enforcement and Supervision Location, where the foreign national is given an area restriction and must remain within the municipal boundaries. Due to the liberty restrictions, immigration detention should always be the last resort.

Those involved in a motor vehicle accident often have emotional needs that are not being met within the current framework of personal injury settlement. These needs include sharing one’s (side of the) story, getting in touch with the other person(s) involved and offering or receiving apologies. Following Nils Christie’s theory of ‘stolen’ conflicts, the fact that the people involved are often represented by lawyers or insurance companies is problematic because it alienates them from each other and it thwarts proper recovery. Incorporating restorative justice could offer a solution to this ‘theft’ of conflict, as it focuses on bringing all involved together to restore any of the harm done by concentrating on their needs. The central question to this dissertation is: how can restorative justice play a role in the sustainable resolution of conflicts after motor vehicle accidents so that the current insurance and liability system can better meet the immaterial needs of victims and perpetrators? Via several projects, the role of lawyers and insurance companies is studied. How beneficial or adversarial are their influences on victims and offenders? And can they incorporate restorative justice in their practice? The first publication is expected at the end of this year.

Coronamaatregelen zijn zeer divers (zowel publiek als privaat) en kunnen verschillend uitpakken voor mensen met een beperking, al naar gelang hun omstandigheden, zoals de plaats waar zij wonen, werken en onderwijs volgen. Hoe verschillend individuele situaties van mensen met een beperking ook kunnen zijn, bij alle maatregelen rond corona moeten juridische analyses de rechten van mensen met een beperking betrekken: niet alleen in het licht van de Grondwet en wetgeving met waarborgen ter zake, maar ook van mensenrechtenverdragen en dan vooral het VN-verdrag Handicap. Het VN-verdrag Handicap is in coronatijd onverminderd van kracht. Uit het verdrag volgt dat ook bij de totstandkoming van coronamaatregelen nauw overleg geboden is met mensen met een beperking en hun representatieve organisaties. Deze bijdrage geeft aan welke aspecten bij het beoordelen van verschillende concrete coronamaatregelen in het bijzonder van belang zijn, gezien het VN-verdrag Handicap.

Op 9 juli 2020 heeft de ACM de Concept Leidraad Duurzaamheidsafspraken ter consultatie op haar website gepubliceerd. Hiermee beoogt de ACM te verduidelijken onder welke omstandigheden afspraken met een duurzame doelstelling met artikel 6 Mw en 101 VWEU verenigbaar zijn, inclusief op basis van de in het derde lid vervatte efficiencytoets. In deze bijdrage wordt eerst een historische parallel getrokken met de verhouding tussen de theorie van de ‘tragedy of the commons’ enerzijds en het Nederlandse poldermodel anderzijds. Vervolgens wordt de Leidraad gecontextualiseerd, beschreven en, tot slot, geanalyseerd.

Recent hebben zowel de Commissie van Beroep financiële dienstverlening als diverse rechters uitspraken gedaan over rentewijzigingsbedingen. Dergelijke bedingen gebruikten kredietverstrekkers van doorlopende kredietovereenkomsten om de variabele rente van die kredieten aan te passen. De uitspraken markeren de verschuiving van een nadruk op contractvrijheid en marktwerking naar de focus op een zekere mate van marktregulering en consumentenbescherming. In deze bijdrage wordt uiteengezet via welke weg deze verschuiving het afgelopen decennium heeft plaatsgevonden en wordt bijzondere aandacht gegeven aan de huidige stand van zaken, waarin twee wegen te herkennen zijn. Door de Commissie van Beroep is het beding uitgelegd – zodat consumenten mochten verwachten dat hun rente in de pas zou blijven met de marktrente. In de rechtspraak is in veel gevallen besloten tot vernietiging van het beding. Geconcludeerd wordt welke van de beide oordelen het meest overtuigt.

To control the COVID-19 outbreak Dutch government opted for a so-called intelligent lockdown. The virus as well as the lockdown caused significant personal and societal damage. It also created, however, a unique natural experiment. How did the forced stay in affect the crime levels? This article presents empirical data on crime trends during the lockdown. Initially, the general crime level decreased sharply. However, the general crime level quickly returned to pre-lockdown levels. Different types of crime displayed divergent trends, e.g. property crimes decreased sharply whereas online crime rates increased considerably. These trends fit rather well with an opportunity theoretical approach regarding crime.

Four phases of the Corona crisis are distinguished: a first acute phase, the gradual transition to a new normal, the economic downturn and the long run. The article describes what happened in the courts in the first and in the beginning of the second phase, and what is subsequently likely to happen. In the acute phase the court buildings shut down, and adjudication came largely to a halt. The courts were late in opening up, and as a result backlogs of, in particular, criminal cases increased. The courts extended their use of digital tools (e.g. tele-hearings) that, while allowing cases to proceed, did not fully protect the rights of parties. While so far the volume of commercial cases and bankruptcies has not increased, a (rapid) increase is inevitable. Contract breach will be wide spread, and will give rise to fundamental legal issues. For economic recovery it is essential that the courts give clear and consistent guidance in these matters quickly. This requires the courts to reduce the currently long duration of civil cases, and to use the available procedures to get expeditious decisions of the Supreme Court. The courts will also need to develop their ICT-instruments rapidly to guarantee the rights of parties. After a difficult first phase, the courts now face the challenge to effectively guide society through the Corona crisis and its aftermath, and thereby play its role in the trias politica.

Most countries in the world chose a more or less stringent form of lockdown policy in order to protect citizens from contagion. This essay offers a critical perspective by asking for the Netherlands whether flattening the curve does not cost more healthy life years (qaly’s) than it saves. A cost-benefit analysis is performed discussing four issues. First: how many qaly’s are actually saved by the lockdown measures? Second: what are the opportunity costs of the lockdown? This means investigating how many qaly’s could have been generated if the economic cost of the lockdown had been spent directly into health care. Third: investigating how many qaly’s are lost because of postponing regular care. And fourth: discussing how many qaly’s are at stake because of excess unemployment. While acknowledging uncertainties the conclusion seems unavoidable: lockdown has and will cost more qaly’s than it generates.

De Covid-19-crisis heeft veel inzicht gegeven in nut en noodzaak van het strafrecht. ‘Opeens’ bleek wat echt nodig was en wat niet. De auteurs houden een pleidooi voor minder vrijheidsbeneming. Werkstraffen en reclasseringstoezichten helpen vaak veel beter om mensen weer op het rechte pad te krijgen, en te houden. Ook mediation in strafrecht zou een prominentere plaats moeten krijgen. Tenslotte stellen de auteurs dat de samenwerking tussen partijen beter kan. Er is nog teveel landjepik.

Since society was secularized, the values of democracy based on the rule of law seem to have the best (potential) binding force for social cohesion. These values are linked to Christianity however. The relation between both will be explained by a critical review of Larry Siedentops Inventing the individual and Olivier Roy’s l’Europe est-elle chrétienne?

In law enforcement animal assisted interventions have become popular. Unfortunately in evaluation studies often animal welfare is not included. The question rises to what extent this work might be harmful for participating animals and what alternatives we may offer. In this contribution we describe how robots have been introduced and are being used in the world of care. Might robots be a good alternative for animal participation in risky situations in law enforcement? We conclude by raising a number of pertinent questions for further research.

This article argues that it is legitimate for the state to practice soft paternalism towards changing hearts and minds in order to prevent behaviour that is discriminatory. Liberals accept that it is not legitimate for the state to intervene in order to change how people think because ideas and beliefs are wrong in themselves. It is legitimate for the state to intervene with the actions of a person only when there is a risk of harm to others and when there is a threat to social coexistence. Preventive action of the state is legitimate if we consider the immaterial and material harm that discrimination causes. It causes harm to the social standing of the person, psychological harm, economic and existential harm. All these harms threaten peaceful social coexistence. This article traces a theory of permissible government action. Research in the areas of behavioural psychology, neuroscience and social psychology indicates that it is possible to bring about a change in hearts and minds. Encouraging a person to adopt the perspective of the person who has experienced discrimination can lead to empathetic understanding. This, can lead a person to critically evaluate her prejudice. The paper argues that soft paternalism towards changing hearts and minds is legitimate in order to prevent harm to others. It attempts to legitimise state coercion in order to eliminate prejudice and broader social patterns of inequality and marginalisation. And it distinguishes between appropriate and non-appropriate avenues the state could pursue in order to eliminate prejudice. Policies towards eliminating prejudice should address the rational and the emotional faculties of a person. They should aim at using methods and techniques that focus on persuasion and reduce coercion. They should raise awareness of what prejudice is and how it works in order to facilitate well-informed voluntary decisions. The version of soft paternalism towards changing minds and attitudes defended in this article makes it consistent with liberalism.