Netherlands: debate on internal security service
01 May 1991
The Dutch parliament on March 14 had an unusually long 6 hour discussion on the re-organization of the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) the Dutch domestic security service. Another unusual aspect was that all the political parties from left to right seemed to share more or less the same view points on the necessity for changes in the functioning of the BVD and in the present system of parliamentary oversight. This resulted in a joint motion by the conservative VVD and the Green Left party asking for a stricter formulation of the tasks and prerogatives of the BVD a motion supported by a majority in parliament. MP's insisted on a limited role of the security service restricting its tasks to the prevention of major threats and not to the investigation of smaller offences like burglaries and small-scale political violence. Law enforcement i.e. acting upon specific crimes should remain the prerogative of the regular police services. Minister of the Interior Ms. Ien Dales promised the MPs that she would maintain more openness with respect to non-operational security matters that involve policy decisions. She would also provide parliament with an annual report of all relevant risks to Dutch security.
All major parties asked to consider establishing an independent expert oversight committee shaped to the Canadian model to be the eyes and ears of parliament. However Ms. Dales told them she did not favour the idea at all. Recently many other governments like the Luxembourg Hungarian and Spanish that were looking for a new model of security oversight turned to the Dutch to ask for English translations of the Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act. The minister preferred considering an enlargement of the parliamentary security and intelligence oversight committee which at present consists only of the chairpersons of the 4 major political parties who are required to maintain an absolute secrecy towards all outsiders including their party experts. Their workload is such that they rarely find time to meet at all let alone carry out investigations on their own initiative. On questions about the co-operation with foreign security services the minister told parliament that all operations of friendly security services on Dutch soil were co- ordinated with their Dutch counterparts and that she was always personally informed of such operations. International co- operation according to Ms. Dales amounted to the transmission of information obtained from border controls; joint evaluations of information and risk assessments; attuning and co-ordination procedures. Most important in this was the Trevi co-operation framework.
Another parliamentary debate on the BVD is expected at the end of April this time on the restructuring of the BVD archives. Minister Dales has recently declared that she did not want any dossiers on persons to be destroyed before late 1993. This amounts to a considerable change of policy: in early 1991 the schedule was still planned for the destruction of hundreds of thousands of files on persons to take place this summer. This is generally seen as a success for the Vereniging Voorkom Vernietiging (Association to Prevent Destruction) a group of researchers journalists activists and privacy protectors that wants a broader discussion before irreversible actions take place. See Statewatch no 1, p2-3.