Netherlands: Secret "administrative detention" proposals
01 May 1999
The newspaper Ravage has revealed new plans to allow detention without any specific charge. In the aftermath of the week long disturbances around the 1997 Amsterdam summit together with the European championships looming in the year 2000, government ministers are examining new ways to allow "administrative detention" of potential "troublemakers".
Under current legislation the mayor has the power to declare a state of emergency in the event of serious public disorder, disturbance or disaster. In practice this has mostly been used against football fans, although demonstrations have also been singled out for the use of emergency powers, most notably during the Amsterdam summit. Once a state of emergency has been declared anyone who disobeys an order can be arrested and charged and, if convicted, imprisoned for up to three months. The new proposals would allow the mayor to detain designated groups of people in a specified place for up to 12 hours, without any specific charge against individuals. The mayor would have to prove that the group had disobeyed instructions given by the relevant authorities and that further disobedience was likely, and that the disobedience involved the whole group, rather than any specific individuals.
Although these new proposals are being presented to the Dutch public as a preventative measure directed at football hooligans. Lawyers and civil rights activists have pointed out that the proposals imply that public order disturbances would have already taken place. Therefore, no riot or crime can possibly be prevented using these new proposals. However, the proposals will allow the innocent to be detained along with "suspects". Other proposed measures would allow large groups of people to be restrained within a designated area of a town or city. Anyone who chose to leave this area would leave themselves liable for administrative detention for up to 12 hours.
Activists believe, however, that the motivation behind the new legislation follows directly from the Amsterdam summit, when the attempted use of Article 140, which allowed detention of people involved in "criminal conspiracy", was thrown out by the courts. They have united with lawyers in condemning the proposals. Wil van der Schans of the civil rights group Buro Jansen & Janssen, described them as: "the definitive end of the right to demonstrate freely in the Netherlands...eventually this law will amount to a severe restriction of everyone's freedom of movement."
Buro Jansen & Janssen May 1999