The distance between the public and the judiciary takes two forms: a punitivity gap and an accessibility gap. This article discusses both types of gap and elaborates on the issue of whether the existence of these gaps influences confidence in the judiciary. From the literature, it appears that the public is generally of the opinion that courts sentence too leniently. However, experiments show that when citizens receive information on a specific case, they become less punitive. Information provision may also help to bridge an accessibility gap, as does actual citizen involvement in the administration of justice. The relation between the gaps discussed and confidence in the judiciary is not clear as yet. The article discusses methods generally used to assess confidence and suggests that confidence may be increased by a reduction of the two gaps.

In het Lundiform-arrest heeft de Hoge Raad geoordeeld dat een entire agreement clause op zichzelf geen uitlegbepaling is en dat een dergelijke bepaling in een overeenkomst als zodanig dan ook niet verhindert dat extrinsiek bewijs gebruikt kan worden om deze overeenkomst uit te leggen. Deze bijdrage schetst in enkele grote lijnen de Amerikaans-rechtelijk achtergrond van de entire agreement clause. De auteur wijst bovendien op het belangrijke onderscheid tussen uitleg en afbakening van overeenkomsten. Het vaststellen van de inhoud van een overeenkomst moet geschieden door enerzijds afbakening van welke afspraken de contractuele relatie tussen partijen beheersen en anderzijds wat deze afgebakende afspraken betekenen. De entire agreement clause speelt in beginsel alleen een rol in de afbakeningsfase.

Het ingrijpen in de positie van crediteuren door het bail-in-instrument vormt aanleiding voor onze bijdrage. Deze bijdrage schetst een beeld van het bail-in-instrument en de gevolgen voor crediteuren van kredietinstellingen. Bail-in vormt – ondanks de genoemde nadelen – een meer dan welkome aanvulling op het bestaande instrumentarium.

In deze bijdrage wordt ingegaan op het conservatoir beslag tot afgifte van luchtvaartuigen. Aan bod komen onder andere de beslagverboden en de wijze waarop beslag dient te worden gelegd. Betoogd wordt onder meer dat art. 729d en 729e Rv een ruimer toepassingsbereik hebben dan uit art. 729 Rv volgt.

Wetsvoorstel 33 362 introduceert in de Wet marktordening gezondheidszorg een verbod op verticale integratie tussen zorgverzekeraars en zorgaanbieders. Het verbiedt zorgverzekeraars, AWBZ-verzekeraars en zorgkantoren om (a) zelf zorg te verlenen en (b) direct of indirect zeggenschap te hebben over een zorgaanbieder. In dit artikel wordt betoogd dat dit verbod niet noodzakelijk en niet proportioneel is om het daarmee beoogde doel te bereiken. Gewezen wordt op het belang om (alternatieve) maatregelen te nemen om het vertrouwen in zorgverzekeraars en de transparantie met betrekking tot de kwaliteit van zorg te verbeteren.

While reflecting on gender issues transgender persons and their issues are often neglected. Government institutions on various levels don’t know how to handle their gender nonconformity as neither male nor female. Also they are often targets of inappropriate police and judicial measures. Transgender persons are often sceptical and cautious when interacting with those professionals: a fair and respectful treatment is not to be expected. In this article the author takes on to explore this blind spot. She presents the results of a survey on the transgender discrimination and violence by police and judicial institutions in Germany. The author points out that this is a result of the ongoing structural discrimination of gender non-conform persons in a binary gender system. This topic is part of her PhD thesis on the experience of discrimination and violence of gender non-conform persons in general. Her qualitative study is based on narrative interviews and a group discussion with gender non-conform persons in Germany.

Menzis Zorgverzekeraar zoekt in deze procedure verhaal voor de ziektekosten die zij heeft vergoed aan haar verzekerden. Het gaat om een moeder en haar zoon, die in 2007 als passagier betrokken waren bij een tweezijdig auto-ongeval. De auto waarin zij zaten, werd bestuurd door hun echtgenoot respectievelijk vader.

The theme of governing anti-social behaviour and incivilities in the public space became more important on the policy and research agenda over the last twenty years. This article describes the law on incivilities in Belgium, namely the ‘administrative communal sanctions’ (GAS). This law is studied in a broader context of contemporary crime control and its organizing patterns. The development of the politics of behaviour can be explained by different characteristics of the period referred to as the late modernity. In the dissertation ‘A culture of control?’ (Devroe 2012) we studied the application and the concrete strategies behind the governance of incivilities on a national and on a city level. The incivility law broadened the competences of the Mayor and the city council especially in the completion of anti social behaviour and public disorder problems in his/her municipality. Instead of being dealt with on a traditional judicial way by the police magistrate, the Mayor can, by this law; himself lay on fines until maximum 250 euro. We mention ‘city republics’ as this punitive sanction became a locally assigned matter, which means that one municipality differs from another in their ‘incivility policy’. Due to the split up of competences of the Belgian state arrangements of 1988, each municipality finds itself framed in different political and organisational executive realities. In this view, Mayors can be called ‘presidents’ of their own municipality, keeping and controlling the process of tackling incivilities as their main responsibility and determining what behaviour had to be controlled and punished and what behaviour can be considered as normal decent behaviour in the public space. Problems of creating a ‘culture of control’, creating inequality for the poor, the beggars and the socially ‘unwanted’ can arise, especially in big cities.

This introduction aims to position the present-day ‘liquid’ security culture in the context of cultural and political developments. Key-words in the cultural patterns in which the new ‘liquid policy’ and ‘new toughness’ is embedded are fear, precaution, late modern anomie and a social hypochondria towards everything that deviates from one’s ‘own’ culture and identity. These cultural phenomena have been translated in political terms, that are divided into neoliberal and neoconservative tendencies. The neoliberal turn in safety politics have resulted in a depoliticisation of democratic decision making, a desolidarisation of ideas on community safety and a deregulation of safety policies. Neoconservative tendencies are reflected in a resentment towards ‘the elites’, ‘the underclass’ and foreigners and a punitive populism, in which claims for stiffer sentences are continuously swept up, regardless of the effect they may have.

Irregular immigrants were disproportionally present in jihadi movements in the Netherlands between 2001 and 2005. By analyzing closed police files and interviewing imams and personnel from Asylum Seeker Centers and Detention Centers, this paper claims that the attractiveness of jihadi movements can be explained by a combination of pragmatic and ideological factors. Jihadi movements are able to fulfil the needs of the irregular immigrants in a pragmatic way, in which crime is an important feature. In addition, the results show that irregular immigrants are searching for meaning, which the jihadi movements can offer. Nonetheless, the salafi-jihadi ideology does not seem to be the core factor to most of the illegally residing immigrants that expresses the attractiveness of the jihadi movements.

On the basis of article 1F Refugee Convention alleged perpetrators of serious crimes can be excluded from refugee protection. Under certain circumstances this exclusion can be regarded a unique type of contemporary banishment and branding. The rationale to exclude is primarily motivated by moral arguments, rather than security related arguments. In case Dutch government cannot deport the excluded persons, the exclusion is not limited to a certain place but (de facto) universal in nature. When the banished alleged perpetrators are declared undesirable aliens they are ‘branded’ as actual perpetrators.

The current phase in which Dutch government increasingly criminalizes the illegal residence of migrants is simultaneously characterized by decreasing numbers of illegal migrants in this country. In the process of crimmigration, some newly developed policies indirectly influence daily lives of specific groups of illegal migrants while other policies and laws more directly try to hinder illegal stay. These policies that aim to exclude and ban illegal migrants are continued even though they are increasingly criticized by academics and divergent (inter)national actors. These policies and laws can be contradictory, sometimes conflict with international treaties, and lead to unforeseen and undesirable outcomes in which human dignity is challenged.

Victims of crime entertain various wishes regarding the criminal justice system. This paper present the results of a study that made use of vignettes. Victim wishes regarding the goals of punishment were examined, and the relation with degree offender intent (intent, negligence) has been established. The results show that when the perpetrator acted intentionally, victims have a greater wish for retribution and the other punishment goals, but they have a smaller need for restoration. Victims wish to be compensated and to receive apologies from the offender, but generally are reluctant to meet with the perpetrator in person.

This article attempts to interpret and critically discuss the concept of incapacitation as a motive in the response to crime. Research shows that incapacitation – disabling or hindering people to commit offences – increasingly presents an important motive in the response to crime. This tendency is explored by several researchers in a new book titled Incapacitation: Trends and New Perspectives (Ashgate 2012). This tendency presents itself by the expansion of various modes of and grounds for detention, but also in the increase of other kinds of incapacitative measures, as well as in the fact that also administrative measures outside criminal law increasingly contain incapacitative elements. This tendency towards incapacitation of possible (re-)offenders can also be witnessed in contemporary politics. Examples discussed here are the intensive application of preventive custody, disqualifications, restraining orders accompanied by electronic monitoring, as well as administrative measures aimed at refusing certificates of good conduct or permits for specific commercial activities. It is argued that incapacitation often is not a proportionate and effective approach against crime. It appears to obscure the perspective on possibly more effective attempts to secure future behavior.

Responsibility of the prisoner for his own rehabilitation is a central element of ‘Modernising Imprisonment’, the masterplan that aims to reform the execution of the prison sentence in the Netherlands. The Secretary of Justice strives for an individual approach based on the points of departure of the Life Course Approach in criminology. This method is designed in different ways. A central element is that rehabilitation will only be offered in the near future to prisoners that show responsibility for their rehabilitation. Based on this starting point, a far-reaching system of advancing and degrading is introduced. Prisoners can deserve freedoms by showing responsible behaviour, but loose them again in case of irresponsible or unmotivated conduct. Three objections against this aspect of Modernising Imprisonment are discussed. First, the rehabilitation principle itself does not allow for such a far-reaching exclusion of categories of prisoners. Second, the high demands put on prisoners are not realistic given the characteristics of the prison population. Third, the assumption that a strict system of advancing and degrading will increase the effectiveness of sentencing is not well founded and cannot be derived from research.

Bespreking van het proefschrift van mr. drs. J.W.A. Biemans