Hoewel de rechtspositie van slachtoffers de afgelopen decennia verstevigd lijkt, blijft de relatie tussen slachtoffer en strafrecht ongemakkelijk. Rechtswetenschappers tonen zich bezorgd dat de toenemende aandacht voor de belangen van slachtoffers uitmondt in ‘geïnstitutionaliseerde wreedheid.’ Deze zorg wordt echter gevoed door een verkeerd begrip van slachtofferschap en heeft slecht begrepen wat het slachtoffer nu eigenlijk van het recht verlangt. Deze bijdrage probeert de vraag van het slachtoffer aan het recht tot begrip te brengen. Wij zullen de onrechtservaring van het slachtoffer conceptualiseren als een ontologisch alleen en verlaten zijn van het slachtoffer. Het aanknopingspunt om de relatie tussen slachtoffer en recht opnieuw te denken zoeken wij in deze verlatenheid. De kern van het betoog is dat het slachtoffer (mede) in het recht beschutting zoekt tegen deze verlatenheid, maar ook altijd onvermijdelijk tegen de grenzen van het recht aanloopt. Van een rechtssysteem dat zich volledig uitlevert aan de noden van slachtoffers kan dan ook geen sprake zijn. Integendeel, het recht moet zijn belang voor slachtoffers deels zien in de onderkenning van zijn eigen beperkingen om onrecht te keren, in plaats van de onrechtservaring van het slachtoffer weg te moffelen, te koloniseren of ridiculiseren.

In dit artikel presenteer ik een nieuwe ‘nominalistische’ theorie van de rechtssubjecten en laat ik zien waarom geen van de tot nu gepresenteerde theorieën de toets der kritiek kan doorstaan. Het artikel valt uiteen in een constructief en een kritisch deel. In het constructieve deel presenteer ik eerst de nominalistische theorie van de rechtssubjecten. Deze theorie richt zich op de persoonlijke elementen van het rechtssysteem en begrijpt rechtspersonen en organen als namen die uitsluitend bestaan binnen het rechtssysteem. In het kritische deel presenteer ik vervolgens een overzicht van de tot nu toe verdedigde theorieën van de rechtspersoon. Het gaat daarbij respectievelijk om de sociaal-biologische of organische leer, de sociologische leer, de sociologisch-juridische leer, de fictieleer en de leer van het (gepersonifieerde) normencomplex. Aan de hand van enkele algemeen geaccepteerde kenmerken van de rechtspersoon laat ik ten slotte zien waarom geen van deze alternatieve theorieën de toets der kritiek kan doorstaan.

In this article, we inquire the merits of criminalizing blasphemy. We argue that religious views do not warrant a separate treatment compared to nonreligious ones. In addition, freedom of speech must be balanced against the interest of those who may be aggrieved by blasphemous remarks. We conclude that penalizing blasphemy is undesirable. It is fortunate, in that light, that acts of blasphemy have recently been decriminalized in The Netherlands by removing blasphemy as an offense from the Criminal Code. Still, other provisions appear to leave enough room to reach the same result, making the removal a possibly virtually aesthetic change. In the international context, it would be regrettable for The Netherlands to forgo the opportunity to take a leading role.

This article explores the themes of injustice and dehumanization in Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Yael Farber’s Molora, in which the story of the Oresteia is dramatized against the backdrop of post-apartheid South Africa. It is argued that both plays depict wrongdoers and victims alike as social outcasts. Thus, they can both be described with Paul Ricoeur as ‘sketches of a man,’ not being able to live up to their full human potential. Borrowing from Ricoeur’s legal philosophy, it is then explained how public trials and hearings help them to reintegrate into society, in which they can regain their full humanity.

In her book Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt concluded that the Eichmann trial taught us the lesson of the ‘fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil’. Arendt explained the concept of banality as thoughtlessness: Eichmann did not realize what he was doing when he planned and executed the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Nazi Germany. In this article Arendt’s analysis of Eichmann’s evil is criticized from an internal perspective: the conclusion that Eichmann was thoughtless cannot be founded on the information Arendt herself gives, especially her reports on Eichmann’s idealism, his knowledge of Kant’s categorical imperative, his Pontius Pilate feeling during the Wannsee Conference, and the two crises of conscience Eichmann experienced during the Holocaust. This information shows that Eichmann clearly realized what he was doing in a moral sense and consciously decided to go on with the Final Solution on the basis of his own convictions as a Nazi.

Book review of Paul Cliteur, The Secular Outlook & Paul Cliteur, Het monotheïstisch dilemma

There are two fundamental problems with regard to the freedom of religion. The first concerns the content and scope of the right; the second, a possible unequal treatment between population groups. The first problem can only be dealt with by a preliminary analysis of the religious phenomenon, which precedes a legal definition. It turns out that there is a range of different types of religion, with on the one hand traditional forms of religion which are narrowly interwoven with the culture in question (all kinds of ‘cultural’ practices possessing a religious dimension), and on the other forms of religion which loosen to a considerable extent the ties between culture and religion. Evidently, the former types of religion cause problems in modern society. An additional problem is that freedom of religion as a modern basic right rests on a view of human being – including the idea of the inherent dignity and autonomy of the human person – which is at odds with the symbolic universe of traditional religion. The conclusion of the article is that in the modern pluralist society freedom of religion is on its way to becoming, or already has become, an unmanageable right. So the problems arising around this right (including that of unequal treatment) can only be solved in a pragmatic, not really satisfactory way. In that context, modern humanitarian standards should be observed in the implementation of the right of freedom of religion because fundamental human rights are connected with a specific concept of humanity.

Jerker Spits, book review of Marc de Wilde, Verwantschap in extremen. Politieke theologie bij Walter Benjamin en Carl Schmitt

Huls has argued that the idea that judges are truth-finders is misleading. In the first part of the paper I put his claim to the test. Against Huls I argue that the aim of procedures in criminal lawsuits is not only to guarantee binding decisions but also to help to find the truth. In the second part of the paper I investigate the role expert-witnesses play in truth-finding. Cleiren and Loth have argued that experts fail to understand the differences between legal and scientific ways of truth-finding. It turns out that Cleiren does not offer an argument for her claim and that Loth’s claim fails too, since it confuses coherence as truth and coherence as epistemic justification. I conclude that legal scholars, rather than experts, fail to understand the nature of legal and scientific truth-finding.

In their book De slapende rechter (The sleeping judge) Dutch legal psychologists W.A. Wagenaar, H. Israëls and P.J. van Koppen claim that Dutch judges wrongfully convict suspects in certain cases because these judges generally fail to understand the way hypothetical reasoning works in relation to empirical evidence. This article argues that Wagenaar, Israëls and Van Koppen are basically right in their claim that reasoning on evidence in criminal cases should have the form of hypothetical reasoning. However, they fail to apply this form of reasoning to their own analysis of Dutch criminal cases and the causes of wrongful convictions. Therefore, their conclusion that a form of revision of convictions outside of the criminal law system should be introduced does not meet their own methodological standards.

This article is a comment on Carel Smith’s paper. Smith rightly argues that the study of law has a hermeneutic character. But his interpretation of legal hermeneutics includes the thesis that in hard cases there is no right or true legal decision. This seems to have negative implications for the scholarly character of the study of law: in hard cases any solution goes. This paper argues, against Smith, that the study of law defends right answers for hard cases. It is also normative in another sense: legal answers, in easy cases as well as in hard cases, always presuppose a normative interpretation of the legal sources. This contributes to the differences of opinion under lawyers. But it is no obstacle to the scholarly character of the study of law, as long as a rational debate about these legal answers and the underlying values and principles is possible. Smith’s rejection of the right answer thesis, however, prevents the possibility of such a rational debate.