Deze bijdrage verkent de consequenties van de COVID-19-crisis voor het fiscale toezicht door de Belastingdienst. De crisis en de lockdownmaatregelen hebben korte- en langetermijngevolgen voor burgers en bedrijven en consequenties voor het werk van de Belastingdienst als uitvoerder en toezichthouder. De psychologische en economische impact van de crisis en de gewijzigde werkwijze van de Belastingdienst kunnen van invloed zijn op de mogelijkheden en motivatie om belastingverplichtingen na te komen. Dit zal verschillen in de opeenvolgende fasen van de crisis. Onze belangrijkste conclusie is dat de Belastingdienst in de verschillende fasen sterk rekening zal moeten houden met de veranderingen in de context van burgers en bedrijven en meer dan voor de crisis zal moeten handelen vanuit zijn maatschappelijke rol.

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.

This article collects publications in this journal about the emergence and effects of legislation. It covers the developments and results of research of the last four decades. First it is concluded that there has been considerable attention to the subject. Second a clear broadening and (theoretical) deepening from different perspectives can be observed. Social-legal research of legislation also appears to have specific characteristics. Subsequently, various points of attention are pointed out, such as more attention to the relationship between legal characteristics and effects, more variation in research methods and more systematic theory-driven research. Finally, attention is drawn to the relationship between (the working of) legislation and social transformations such as globalization, digitization and the increasing and profound influence of social media in society.

In From big five to high five the author analyzes the developments of sociology of law at the law faculties in the Netherlands since the 1970ies until today. Focusing on the professors (‘chairs’) he argues that after a strong start with five prominent scholars the discipline is now placed in the periphery of the law curriculum. Sociology of law is ‘intellectually strong, but institutionally weak’.
The author encourages the present generation professors (‘chairs’) to cooperate more. He claims that writing one modern Dutch Introduction to Sociology of law is crucial to win the hearts and minds of the law students. Furthermore, he suggests that collaborative research projects contributes to the visibility of sociology of law in policy arenas and public debates.

The paper highlights the contributions on judges and courts published in Recht der Werkelijkheid from 1980-2020. It addresses three general themes, namely communication in court, the consumers of the law and the professionals of the law, in view of the objective of the journal.
The authors of the contributions, newcomers as well as well-known experienced researchers, come from different kind of branches like anthropology, psychology, sociology and history, utilizing quite different approaches, methodologies and theories. They elaborate on each other’s work, methods, empirical findings and theoretical insights, in order to develop new research questions or to conduct research in different contexts. Although the critical-rational ideas of Popper has no many followers among the authors, lessons can be learned for policy makers, judges, lawyers and academics. By bringing the authors together, the journal has made an invaluable contribution to the debate among socio-legal researchers in the Netherlands.

The Dutch legislature has recently (2012) altered the legislation for post-conviction revision of criminal cases. The legislature aimed to improve the balance between the competing interests of individual justice and the finality of verdicts, by making post-conviction revision more accessible. In this article we describe the current legal framework for revising cases. We also study how the revision procedure functions in practice, by looking at the types and numbers of (successful) requests for further investigations and applications for revision. We observe three challenges in finding the right balance in the revision process in the Netherlands. These challenges concern: 1) the scope of the novum criterion (which is strict), 2) the appropriate role of an advisory committee (the ACAS) in revision cases (functioning too much as a pre-filter for the Supreme Court) and, 3) the difficulties that arise due to requiring a defence council when requesting a revision (e.g., financial burdens).

This article considers how empirical legal studies (ELS) and doctrinal legal research (DLR) interact. Rather than seeing them as competitors that are methodologically independent and static, it suggests that they are interdependent activities, which may each be changed by interaction with the other, and that this change brings both opportunities and threats. For ELS, the article argues that DLR should properly be understood as part of its theoretical framework, yet in practice little attention is given to doctrine in empirical work. Paying more attention to DLR and legal frames generally would help ELS meet the common criticism that it is under-theorised and excessively policy oriented. On the other hand, an embrace of legal thinking, particularly of critical legal thinking, might lead to loss of status for ELS in policy circles and mainstream social science. For DLR, ELS offers a chance for it to escape the threat of insular sterility and irrelevance and to participate in a founded commentary on the world. The risk, however, is that in tailoring legal analysis to what can be empirically researched legal scholars become less analytically ambitious and more safe, and their traditionally important role as a source of socially relevant critique is weakened. Inevitably, in offering different ways of moving to normative conclusions about the law, ELS and DLR pose challenges to each other, and meeting those challenges will require sometimes uncomfortable self-reflection.

Voor risicogerichte handhaving van regelnaleving door bedrijven is het niet alleen van belang inzicht te verkrijgen in hoe vaak een bedrijf de regels overtreedt, maar ook welke regels worden overtreden. Patronen in de aard van regelovertreding kunnen indicatief zijn voor de achterliggende oorzaak van regelovertreding en daarmee nuttige kennis opleveren voor het vormgeven van effectieve handhavingsstrategieën. In deze studie brengen we patronen in de aard van regelovertreding in kaart voor 494 Nederlandse Brzo-bedrijven die vallen onder de Europese Seveso III-richtlijn. We maken hiervoor gebruik van zowel de diversiteitsindex als latenteklasseanalyse. Onze resultaten laten zien dat diversiteit in regelovertreding sterk samenhangt met de frequentie waarmee bedrijven regels overtreden. Regelovertredende bedrijven blijken doorgaans geen specialisten, maar generalisten. Implicaties voor toezicht en handhaving worden besproken.

De huidige technologische ontwikkelingen op het terrein van de voertuigautomatisering stellen het bestaande publiekrechtelijk reguleringsinstrumentarium op de proef. Daarbij spelen met name de snelheid van de ontwikkelingen, de onzekerheid over de veiligheidseffecten en de nieuwsoortige aard van de technologie en de daaraan verbonden risico’s een rol. Een van de vragen die daarbij rijst, is die naar het potentieel van het aansprakelijkheidsrecht om als aanvullend of substituut-reguleringsinstrument te fungeren. Het antwoord op die vraag is, in ieder geval in theorie, positief.

Herziening ten voordele van de gewezen verdachte is een bijzonder rechtsmiddel in het gesloten stelsel van rechtsmiddelen. Onder meer op grond van een novum kan, bij hoge uitzondering, een onherroepelijke veroordeling alsnog ongedaan worden gemaakt. De regeling heeft in 2012 diverse wijzigingen ondergaan. Daarbij is het novumcriterium verruimd en is de mogelijkheid ingevoerd dat de procureur-generaal een nader onderzoek verricht naar het mogelijke bestaan van een novum. De Adviescommissie afgesloten strafzaken (ACAS) adviseert hem veelal over de wenselijkheid van dergelijk onderzoek. Het wettelijke novumcriterium en de taakopvatting van de ACAS zijn echter geen rustig bezit gebleken. Er wordt doorlopend voorgesteld om het novumcriterium verder te verruimen en om de ACAS breder naar afgesloten zaken te laten kijken. Het is de vraag of de wetgever aan die oproep gehoor moet geven.

Based on a retrospective analysis of six large scale and fatal fires in the Netherlands, an improvement in terms of meeting the needs of victims can be seen. A comparison of the legal settlement of these fires shows mayor differences in the fulfilling of different aspects of social justice that are identified in social psychology. Two victim needs commonly associated with retributive justice – financial compensation and a thorough, neutral investigation into the causes of the disaster – were fulfilled to a higher degree after the most recent fires than after those that occurred decades ago. The legal settlement after the New Year’s fire in Volendam (2001) appears – at least on paper – to have been more just from the victim’s point of view than the ones after the other incidents. Empirical research into the experienced social justice after the New Year’s fire can be valuable to assess the factors that can lead to a just settlement after disasters.

Similar to the more current Regulator Intermediary Target (RIT) model, Griffiths’ Social Working (SW) theory points to the relevance of intermediaries for explaining rule following behavior. In this article, the author applies both theories (RIT and SW) concerning the role of intermediaries in rule following to explain developments in Dutch prostitution policy: the non-implementation of the emancipatory, sex workers’ rights based approach, and its replacement by a more repressive policy of closing down sex facilities. The analysis shows that although both theories contain useful starting point for explaining these developments, the SW theory’s special value is its acknowledgement of how regulatory intermediaries operate in a social field with existing social rules and a specific balance of power. Such rules and power relations have put barriers to the implementation of the Dutch prostitution policy as formulated in 1999. As illustrated in the article, the SW- theory offers more tools than the RIT- model for an analysis of how legal rules work in practice.

De wereldwijde belangstelling die het seksueel misbruik door de rooms-katholieke kerk heeft gekregen, heeft in Nederland geresulteerd in een procedure voor slachtoffers van dit seksueel misbruik in Nederland. Deze bijdrage doet verslag van een onderzoek waarin is geanalyseerd (1) of benadeelden kregen wat zij zochten, en (2) wat daarnaast verklaarde waarom de geschilbeslechters overgingen tot het toekennen van niet-financiële compensatie zoals excuses, erkenning van het leed en erkenning van het seksueel misbruik.

This paper starts by reviewing empirical research that threatens law and economics’ initial success. This research has demonstrated that the functioning of the law cannot be well understood based on the assumption of the rational actor and that policies which are based on this assumption are likely to be flawed. Subsequently, three responses to this criticism are discussed. Whereas the first response denounces this criticism by maintaining that the limitations attributed to the rational actor can easily be incorporated in rational choice theory, the second response welcomes the criticism as an opportunity to come up with an integrative theory of law and behavior. The third response also takes the criticism seriously but replaces the aspiration to come up with such an integrative theory by a context-sensitive approach. It will be argued that the first two responses fall short while the third response offers a promising way to go forward.

Bij aansprakelijkheid en onzekere risico’s draait het om de verdeling van wetenschappelijke onzekerheden. In dit artikel wordt besproken dat vanuit een correctief paradigma men focust op de verdeling van onzekerheden tussen de procespartijen, terwijl het reguleringsparadigma de nadruk legt op de verdeling van onzekerheden over de maatschappij. Toepassing van beide paradigma’s leidt tot verschillende uitkomsten, onder meer in het kader van de onrechtmatigheid en het CSQN-verband.