This contribution puts the developments of the socio-legal approach of access to justice and legal aid in the low countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) in a broad perspective. During the last 40 years, the journal has dealt with some general problems, related to the accessibility of justice and legal aid and the effects of legislation in that field. Some important differences between het Belgian and the Dutch situation are highlighted. Although the general situation has not changed dramatically in both countries, some improvements have been achieved, e.g. when it comes to the so called “social legal aid”. Still, a better and more equal access to justice has to be promoted and realised.

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.

Victims who suffer severe damages due to the act of a violent crime can request state compensation from the Dutch Violent Offences Compensation Fund (VOCF). VOCF workers who decide on these requests use their discretionary powers to translate the VOCF’s rules and policy into concrete actions. This study investigated (1) to what extent these VOCF workers match Lipsky’s definition of street-level bureaucrats and (2) what routines and heuristics they use to deal with time and information constraints. On the basis of document analysis and interviews, we found that the decision makers of the VOCF can to a certain extent be seen as street-level bureaucrats. To make decisions timely, some of them use routines such as the ‘downstream orientation’. This means that they award requests for compensation if they think that the applicant would be able to successfully contest a rejecting decision. To deal with a lack of information, they sometimes include a review clause in the text of a rejection decision. The use of heuristics was not found among the lawyers who decide in first instance, but in case of appeal hearings heuristics such as the affect and representativeness heuristic seem to play a role in the decision-making process. Future research should investigate whether these routines and heuristics lead to disparities in outcomes.

This paper analyses how street-level bureaucrats in the Netherlands decide on detaining asylum seekers. The paper is based on interviews with officers of the national police and the military police who take these decisions as part of their job. The relevant Dutch and European legal rules are not clear and unambiguous and the officers are given wide margins of discretion in making these decisions. Many interviewees said that they ultimately rely on their ‘feelings’. The paper therefore pays special attention to whether and how gut feelings and emotions of the officers influence their decision-making. In addition, the paper examines whether and how the increased use of ICTs and the Europeanisation of migration and asylum law have reduced the officers’ discretion and autonomy.

In the Netherlands, patients have a large number of options to express their dissatisfaction about the services provided by health care providers and can institute all kind of (quasi) legal procedures. None of these procedures was however introduced to ensure patients’ right to access to justice. Access to justice for health care providers confronted with complaints by patients is even less guaranteed. An analysis of Dutch law and practice learns that the access to justice has not found an inroad in the health care sector yet. This is not to suggest that patients lack legal rights, but if access to justice was taken as a yardstick to measures laws against the health care sector, they would have looked differently.

When the Allied victory over the Axis powers is becoming certain, American officials start making plans for the occupation of Germany. In the aftermath of the invasion in 1944, some of these plans are brought to the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury in Roosevelt’s war cabinet, Henry Morgenthau. These plans infuriate him, because he considers them too lenient on Germany, which in his opinion should be reduced to an agrarian economy after its Nazi leadership has been summarily executed. The President at first agrees with this line of action as do most of the members of his cabinet. The only one opposing these ideas is the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, suggesting economic reconstruction and an international tribunal instead. His opposition seems in vain, when Roosevelt and Churchill publicly agree to this course of action towards Germany during a meeting in Quebec. But the ‘Morgenthau plan’ unravels when it is leaked to the press and it causes an uproar. Roosevelt fears for his re-election chances and hastily retreats. But he makes no decision on the issue and Stimson has to wait for his opportunity. It comes in the person of a new President: Harry Truman. He agrees to Stimson’s proposal for an international tribunal and this brings the United States on board of an allied majority for what is later to become the Nuremberg Tribunal.

This article paints Henk Leenen as the godfather of Dutch health law. Godfather because Leenendesigned his own version of health law, a version that is characterized by an emphasis on autonomy of the patient. And godfather because Leenen was one of the founders of the Dutch Association of Health Law and for many years the editor of its periodical. He succeeded to bind almost all health law scholars to this organization and his way of seeing health law. The article illustrates Leenen’s influence by describing his reading of autonomy in health law, by outlining his informal and formal position in the health law landscape and by sketching the coming into being and the content of two important laws: the Law on medical contracts and the Law on physician assisted death (‘euthanasia’).

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Recht der Werkelijkheid.

Various developments since 1960 have lead to a legalization of care, especially the call for individual rights, emancipation, international treaties, the transformation of private problems to public issues and the diminishing authority of professionals. This legalization has important social consequences. Effects are both direct and indirect, positive and negative. The ‘rights revolution’ has gone too far and leads to unrealistic expectations of what law can do. Therefore a down-to-earth and empirical informed perspective on the relation between law and care is of great importance.

The position of patients facing forced hospitalization in a mental health clinic develops both in a soft and in a hard direction. On the one hand there is a soft current of more empathy with legal protection and on the other hand a harder current that leads to a growing number of forced measures. This involves three dilemmas. First, legal intervention touches only upon the fringe and not upon the core of psychiatric treatment. Second, the problematic relation with the criminal justice sector and third, a lack of concern for what happens after the decision of the judge. Quality based peer review has not developed well in this sector. Forced hospitalization will remain sour for the near future.

The relation between law and care has changed dramatically. Until recently this relation could be characterised as distant, supportive and respectful. This relation has undergone a paradigm shift. More and more and in many areas the notion of care is used by the lawmaker, to impose duties of care combined with enforcement. This implies a change from private law to administrative law. This development is undesirable, because it raises false expectations and, in the end, works counterproductive.

The ‘Bureau Jeugdzorg’ is the gatekeeper in the field of youth care policy. From its start the Bureau has faced a difficult combination of empathy and social control. The individual youth was entitled to ‘a right on care’, which in practice was frustrated by long waiting lists. The mental health professionals also resisted the central role of the Bureau. So, soon after its inception Bureau Jeugdzorg is already in jeopardy. It is unlikely that the new political initiatives in this field will improve the legal protection of minors.

Care, self determination and law in child psychiatry is a difficult combination. Three problems arise here: Bureau Jeugdzorg does not have a good working relationship with the doctors, bad coordination between professionals, and finally an unwarranted trust in protection within the family. It is argued that a ‘duty of special care’ for professionals might help. This should prevail over the right of self determination. A second improvement might be a ‘criterion of necessity’ that may overrule a lack of cooperation by the minor.

Two types of legalization can be distinguished. In type 1 legal relations between parties are changed, without consequences for others. In legalization type 2 a change in legal positions does have consequences for third parties. The gradual change in the legal position of patients, managerial measures and the transition to ‘demand driven care’ have changed the relations between patients and doctors, nurses etc. But they had also profound external effects. They have influenced especially other interests than the quality of medical care, like equal treatment of patients and professional discretion. Decision making about the granting of rights should incorporate these external effects.