Als gevolg van de coronamaatregelen worden onderzoeken ter zitting soms zo ingericht dat bepaalde procesdeelnemers en publiek de zitting alleen via een videoverbinding kunnen bijwonen. In deze bijdrage wordt onderzocht of en, zo ja, onder welke voorwaarden, het in het algemeen juridisch toelaatbaar is om zittingen op die manier in te richten en of dat ook wenselijk zou zijn. Daarbij worden twee varianten onderscheiden: de volledig digitale zitting – die niet in een zittingszaal plaatsvindt – en de zitting waarbij de rechters en mogelijk ook de officier van justitie in de zittingszaal aanwezig zijn, maar de andere procesdeelnemers de zitting digitaal bijwonen. Na de beantwoording van de onderzoeksvraag worden suggesties gedaan voor een regeling in het gemoderniseerde Wetboek van Strafvordering.

This article examines the use of citizen participation in urgent missing person cases. The Theory of Planned Behavior was used to examine which specific considerations investigators have in this regard and which have the greatest influence on the choice of whether or not to involve citizens. The findings suggest that this choice is primarily attitude-driven. Detectives are predominantly positive about participation, but see harm to the investigation as the main risk. A practical implication is to focus collaboration primarily on professionally organized groups of citizens to reduce (perceived) risks.

Police officers are often the victim of aggression by citizens, which has negative consequences for them and society in general. Therefore, it is important to gain knowledge about related factors. This study examines to what extent experiencing aggression as a police officer is related to their patience with citizens and use of force. Two explanations based on the victim-offender overlap are examined: that aggression experiences and dealing with citizens influence each other and that they have common causes. This study was conducted on the basis of a longitudinal questionnaire survey among police officers (N=693). The results show that interaction with citizens, including patience with citizens and the use of force, is related to the aggression police officers experience. The association diminishes when common causes, in this case socio-demographic and work-related characteristics, are taken into account, but does not disappear. No direct support is found for reciprocal influence. Implications and suggestions for further research are described.

Domestic violence is a prevalent and persistent problem in society. To be able to effectively intervene in cases of domestic violence, protect victims, and reduce the costs of domestic violence, several initiatives have been implemented in recent years with the aim of improving the response to domestic violence. A multidisciplinary and systemic approach to tackling domestic violence has been introduced, which is especially important in complex cases. Police work together with different partners, among others, the organisation ‘Safe at Home’ (Veilig Thuis) and the public prosecutor. Police play a particularly important role in achieving immediate safety in cases of domestic violence, and work together with partners to accomplish more structural safety for all family members. The development towards a more holistic response to domestic violence in which the police work together with other organisations is important to be able to tackle domestic violence more effectively. Although the importance of collaboration between different organisations has been recognised, the multidisciplinary response is still in development, resulting in some problems in practice.

Compensation funds in different jurisdictions have varying functions and objectives to remedy loss. This doctoral research addresses the significant knowledge gap in relation to no-fault comprehensive compensation funds. These are a single publicly-managed structure that provides a wide, compulsory and complete replacement for tort remedies.
The research identifies the hallmarks of these funds’ successful establishment, administration, operation and further development. This includes analysis of the functional harms covered, compensation quantum and funding. There is also a novel first principles analysis of the interaction between large funds and human rights law. These analyses inform concrete recommendations for the legislative improvement of existing funds, new funds, and the framework’s application to contemporary liability problems.

Though the position of victims of crime in criminal proceedings has improved on paper, it is claimed within both the academic as the legal community that realization of victims’ rights is inadequate. In this exploratory research, a broad group of (legal) professionals was systematically questioned on this matter. They were asked whether and where compliance with victims’ rights is lacking, and how this comes about in their view. Although much has improved, it appears that compliance by the authorities is not yet self-evident and fundamental mechanisms in the criminal justice system appear to hinder the realization of rights for victims.

Procedural justice has been at the forefront of empirical legal research in the Netherlands in past years. One of the major goals of this research is to find out what the effects are of the perception of procedural justice. In this article, I argue that the notion of procedural justice is deontological in nature. It has an intrinsic value, which means that it cannot be weighed against other interests. This is recognized in law: people have a right to a fair trial. However, since in social scientific research the focus is on the effects of procedural justice, researchers treat this concept (also) as a consequentialist notion. It is thought of as a means which can serve some useful end. My aim is to assess whether this way of valuing procedural justice can be considered acceptable. An important upshot of my discussion is that conducting research into procedural justice implies a normative stance. Finally, I suggest ways in which an all too instrumental approach to procedural justice can be avoided.

In times of crisis, we witness exceptional expressions of solidarity. Why does solidarity spring in times of crisis when it wanes in normal times? An inquiry into what may explain the differences between the expression of solidarity in crisis vs. normalcy provides, as I will argue in this article, important insights into the conditions and nature of solidarity. Solidarity requires, I will contend, an egalitarian ethos and state action within and beyond the state. It is neither a momentary political ideal, nor an exclusionary one, which depends for its sustainment on formal, legal, structures. Transient, sectarian, and informal conceptions of solidarity unduly curtail the demands of solidarity by restricting its reach to times of crisis, to in-group recipients, and to the social rather than the legal sphere. The article concludes by discussing some aspects of the dynamics of solidarity and its inherent risks that the analysis of the exceptionality of solidarity helps bring into focus.

What is at stake in invoking solidarity in legal-political contexts? The guiding hypothesis of this article is that solidarity is always and necessarily linked to the concept of community. A plea for solidarity will, in other words, directly lead one to the question: solidarity with whom? On the one hand, solidarity may be understood as extending only to those who belong to the same community as us. In this reading, solidarity builds upon an already existing community and applies to members only. On the other hand, invoked by those who aim to question the status quo, solidarity also plays a key role in practices of contestation. In these contexts, it focuses on collective action and the reimagination of political community. The article ends by articulating how this second interpretation of solidarity might prove helpful in making sense of our current predicament of a global pandemic.

Populism is a somehow intractable notion, since its reference is much too wide, comprising phenomena that are indeed in conflict between them, and moreover blurred, by being often used in an instrumental, polemical way. Such intractability is then radicalized through the two alternative approaches to populism, one that is more or less neutral, rooting in the political science tradition, and a second one, fully normative, though fed by political realism, founding as it does on a specific political theory and project. In the article an alternative view is proposed, that of populism as the politics that is congruent with the increasing role played by ‘screens’, icons, and images in social relationships and indeed in political representation. In this way populism is approached as the specific way politics is done within the context of a digitalized société du spectacle.

The article discusses a range of important normative questions raised by anti-COVID-19 measures and policies. Do governments have the right to impose such severe restrictions on individual freedom and furthermore do citizens have obligations vis-à-vis the state, others and themselves to accept such restrictions? I will argue that a democratic state may legitimately enforce publicly discussed, properly enacted and constitutionally tested laws and policies in order to protect its citizens from risks to life and limb. Even so, there is a natural limit, factual and normative, to what the state or a government can do in this respect. Citizens will also need to take it upon themselves not to harm and to protect others and in the context of a pandemic this means that endorsement of restrictions or other mandatory measures, notably vaccination, is not to be seen as a matter of personal preference concerning the supposedly inviolable sovereignty of one’s own body.

The COVID-19 crisis has produced or amplified disruptive processes in societies. This article wants to argue for the fact that we understand the meaning of the COVID-19 crisis only if we relate it to the fundamental vulnerability of modern life and the awareness of vulnerability of whole societies. Vulnerability in modernity are expressions of a reality of freedom that is to some extent considered contingent and therefore unsecured. It is true that law is understood today as the protective power of freedom. The thesis of the article, however, boils down to the fact that the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in a new way of thinking about the protection of freedom. This also means that the principle of solidarity must be assigned a new social role. Individual and societal vulnerability refer thereafter to an interconnectedness, dependency, and a future perspective of freedom margins that, in addition to the moral one, can also indicate a need for legal protection. In this respect, law has not only a function of delimitation, but also one of inclusion.

An Employment Tribunal (ET) decision involving an advertising agency has highlighted the dangers for employers of taking an overly aggressive approach to reducing gender pay gaps. It also provides a reminder that all discrimination is unlawful, even where the victims are from a historically privileged group.

This article was written by Claudia Mazzucato for The International Journal of Restorative Justice 21(2) and translated for our thematic issue. Mazzucato explains that there is something in restorative justice that resembles art. In her view restorative justice is made of the same fabric. Both deal with ‘creativity and rigour, imagination and insight, preparation and improvisation, vocation and inclination, talent and skill’. Both trigger innovation and have a political dimension when identifying problems and look for transformations or cultural change. The use of art in the restorative field is growing and visible in literature, paintings, theatre and films. Art can become a sort of mediator of restorative encounters or can give a concrete shape to stories that otherwise cannot be told. The author asks questions about liaisons between restorative justice, law and art. The leges artis of restorative justice are values and standards as drafted by the United Nations and Council of Europe. Do they nourish criminal justice in terms of beauty? To a certain extent yes. A challenging task of the art of restorative justice is in her view: ‘to approach the complexity of the quest for justice in the real world, combining hard and soft skills harmonically, and complying rigorously with the proper restorative leges artis, in order to amend in democratic ways what has proved wrong and harmful, and to prospectively avoid its reoccurrence’.

In this essay Peter Vermeersch, a social scientist and writer, describes his personal journey to the world of restorative justice. It starts with a group encounter between inmates and victims of non-related crimes in a Belgian prison. As one of the participants in this meeting the author discusses his experience as the victim of a robbery. He also gives an account of his experience as member of a jury trial for a murder case in Brussels, about which he published a book (2019). Vermeersch reflects on his role as juror, illuminates the short-comings of the justice system and its old-fashioned architecture, and most importantly, observes the complex human realities that hide behind the standard images of offenders, victims and other people involved in a crime. In this context, he asks what justice is, thinks about what the role of punishment and retribution can be, and, more broadly, discusses the potential of citizens’ participation and deliberation in issues of public interest. The essay includes several references to film, poetry and other literature that challenges stereotypical images of good and evil. It concludes with a discussion of the wider societal meaning and possible role of restorative justice.

Brunilda Pali described in 2015 the work of the American digital and media artist Sharon Daniel (University of California in Santa Cruz) in a special publication as a result of an interdisciplinary, international arts research collaboration. The new-media documentary Inside the Distance was shown in the StuK Art Center Leuven in that period and included fragments of restorative justice encounters. It was an effort to test the potential for activist art practice to have a direct role in changing social conditions. Brunilda Pali said: ‘In interacting with Sharon Daniel, we had the opportunity to create a focused dialogue, addressing the intersection of artistic and social practices. This project has brought together, research, art, theory, and practice in a very innovative and interesting way.’ The exhibition also investigated whether a new imagining of affect and responsiveness is possible through the use of specific visual, narrative, poetic, and formal frameworks. These reflections reveal the uniqueness of the work of Sharon Daniel and can also be seen as ‘art for social change’ by showing stories of marginalized people who otherwise are not heard.

Using digital (online) means (for example video calling) to facilitate communication between victims, offenders and mediators during victim-offender mediation (VOM) is not common practice, but has been employed more frequently during the corona pandemic. Do such digital means have added value for restorative justice practices, even when corona measures no longer hinder offline communication? This contribution shares some of the findings from the PhD project of Florian Bonensteffen, that focuses on the potential (dis) advantages of implementing digital communication and technologies in the VOM field in the Netherlands. In a qualitative study based on interviews with victims, offenders and mediators, the perceived applicability and ease of using digital communication forms in the VOM process were examined. Findings indicate that such forms are perceived to promote the emotional well-being of victims and offenders in cases where meeting face-to-face might be too stressful (e.g. due to fear), as well as can provide for a richer exchange than current offline forms of letter exchanges or shuttle mediation. Perceived interpersonal disadvantages of digital communication during VOM were mentioned only in comparison to face-to-face meetings and involved a limited exchange of non-verbal and contextual information about the other party, and less control over the digital dialogue for the mediator. Practical disadvantages centered around privacy and technical stability concerns. The findings suggest that digital forms of communication such as videoconferencing and -messages during VOM have the potential to fill the void between current offline direct (face-to-face) and indirect forms (letter exchange and shuttle mediation) – if such digital means are well-prepared and the privacy of parties is safeguarded.

This chronicle discusses the importance of Bruno Latour’s work for criminology, paying attention to the role of technology and our relationship to nature. The author proposes to criminalize ecocide and advocates the use of restorative justice in dealing with environmental crimes.

Dutch prisons are not exempt from incidents. Despite the negative impact of violence on the safety of inmates and the chances of successful reintegration, not much is known about the prevalence of victimization in Dutch prisons and the characteristics of victims. Additionally, previous research has pointed out the overlap between victim status and offender status. In this contribution, the authors will discuss the prevalence of self-reported victimization among Dutch inmates and the characteristics of victims and victim-offenders. Data from 3,485 participants from the Life in Custody Study are used for this purpose.