The current Attorney General at the Supreme Court is known as a music lover and avid cello player. Edwin Bleichrodt also wants to confirm that he also has a great love for football. But when asked which club he takes place in the stands, it remains quiet. “I am at the KNVB,” he apologizes, referring to his secondary position as a member of the Appeals Committee of the Football Association – where players can challenge suspensions by the disciplinary committee.
As ‘PG’ at the Supreme Court, Bleichrodt fulfills one of the most important roles in the rule of law. While the Supreme Court is sufficient with the online explanation that the Council is right, are for the PG’s job description Nine web pages necessary. “It’s hard to summarize in one sentence,” says Bleichrodt. “But all my work is related to the independent position that the Attorney General takes in our state system.”
“Politicians are always involved in the persecution of MPs and ministers and that is experienced as uncomfortable in a broad circle”
In addition to giving legal advice – conclusions – about matters that are pending at the Supreme Court and investigating the revision of criminal cases, the PG also plays an important role as a supervisor and prosecutor. He assesses declarations against ministers and MPs and continues them if he is instructed by the government or Chamber. He supervises the Public Prosecution Service and is responsible for disciplinary supervision of judges.
The PG is given tasks ‘in more and more areas’, Bleichrodt sees. Since the arrival of privacy legislation in 2018, he has been charged with supervising how the case law handles personal data. The new law on the political parties, which was submitted to the Lower House in May, gives the PG a crucial role in prohibiting parties that seriously threaten the democratic constitutional state.
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In his spacious office in The Hague in the building of the Supreme Court – of which Bleichrodt with his public prosecutor’s office is not part of it, but it does hold the office – NRC Responding to his supervisory work, the prosecution of politicians and the rule of law. On the wall his gown with ermine is striking. “It is not a real fur,” the PG emphasizes.
At the end of March, Bleichrodt announced an investigation into the OMPruitment. This followed NRC-Monhullingen that from now on the Public Prosecution Service wants to dismiss as many criminal cases as possible on which a maximum of six years in prison, himself, outside of court, by imposing a criminal decision. The plans came up with strong criticism because penal decisions are not public and the OM can only impose fines and community service sentences – and therefore no prison sentence. Of the eleven supervisory investigations that the PG carried out since the possibility of this in 2012, five were about the penalty decision. Bleichrodt and his predecessors found that the Public Prosecution Service violated the law, for example by imposing criminal decisions without sufficient evidence, with a lack of description of the (criminal) facts or without translations for foreign suspects.
What does it say that almost half of your investigations are about the penalty decision?
“My supervision focuses on whether the Public Prosecution Service complies with and implements legal regulations. It is not for nothing that the penalty decision is discussed. In the penal decision, it is practicing powers from those intervention in the lives of people without a judge being involved. Then it is of great importance that the legal regulations are complied with.”
Do you think it is appropriate that the OM will increase the use of the penalty decision while in 2022 you found that the practice in a number of areas does not meet the law and your recommendations have not yet been implemented?
“The legislator has given the Public Prosecution Service the space to impose criminal decisions and I do not follow how the OM fills in that space. At the same time, I think that in the intensification of the use of the criminal decision, to which the OM it has decided, other aspects of our criminal justice must also be involved, such as the importance of the public sentence and the imposition of the decision that is not possible.”
The Public Prosecution Service stilt A large part of the points for improvement found in 2022 cannot be able to implement until there is a new case system. Do you have to accept that the OM does not comply with its legal obligations as long as there is no new IT system?
“I find it difficult to cast it in terms of accepting. The PG investigates, signals and advises. What I think is the most important thing as a supervisor is what it means for the quality of the penalty decision when that intensification is implemented. We have found shortcomings on how to deal with the use of the quality. we assess in our new research. “
It is not the first time that IT problems influence the functioning of the OM. There have been frequent computer malfunctions lately. Are the IT problems not worth an investigation of the PG at the OM?
“We are indeed looking at the extent to which legal regulations are not complied with by ICT aspects. Not only in the investigation into the penalty decision, but also in a new investigation about sepots that comes out in July. I don’t know if I will ever go into an umbrella investigation, but it is certainly an aspect that I take into investigations.”
You are responsible for the persecution of MPs and ministers. There is much to do in the Lower House about leaking from the presidency about former chairman Khadija Arib. In addition to civil servants, MPs and former chairman Vera Bergkamp may also be involved. Is this a case that can come on your plate?
“When a report is made against a Member of Parliament and it is an official crime, then that case does indeed end up with me and, if it comes to a prosecution, I will follow in the role of prosecutor. This investigation is being treated with the OM and there is one [inmiddels vrijgesproken] Suspect who does not fall under this scheme. If a member of parliament still comes into the picture, the OM will inform me and I can start an exploratory investigation. The situation here is even more complex because the room also has the opportunity to do research itself. “
Who ultimately decides whether a member of parliament or minister will be prosecuted?
“That can be both the government or the House of Representatives. Then I have to bring the case to the Supreme Court that tries him or her.”
Is that not unhappy – because very politically – organized in this way?
“Politicians are always involved in the persecution of MPs and ministers and that is experienced in broad circle and uncomfortable. Both the prosecution of someone from their own cabinet and coalition as someone from the opposition is complicated. The Fokkens committee has done research on this and proposed in 2021 to make that persecution from the PG – the prosecution for the prosecution of the prosecution for the prosecution of the prosecution for the prosecution of the prosecution for the prosecution of the prosecution for the prosecution for the prosecution for the prosecution for the prosecution. Constitutional amendment was recently sent to the Council of State for advice. “
“You would expect that there are more guarantees in the appointment to prevent the independent role of the PG from being compromised”
Has the PG ever prosecuted a politician at all?
“Until now, all exploratory studies show that there are no starting points for prosecution [geweest]. But I don’t see it as a purely theoretical possibility. In the countries around us, we sometimes see criminal investigations that would have fallen under this legal regulation in the Netherlands, such as the recent persecution of Minister Salvini in Italy for stopping boat refugees and the prosecution of former ministers in Belgium following the so -called AgustaScandal around corruption when purchasing combat helicopters. ”
In recent years you received declarations against MP Thierry Baudet (FVD) and the Ministers Marjolein Faber (PVV) and Sigrid Kaag (D66). Are the declarations mainly from activist angle?
“A report sometimes seems politically colored, but what I test is of course not the political desirability of a direction. I serve it, so I put it along the bar of law.”
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Due to the advance of political parties that have little excitement with the independence of case law, the Netherlands is seriously considered to terminate the influence of the Minister of Justice on the appointment of the Council of the Judiciary and Court presidents. How do you see your position? Is it sufficiently protected against unwanted influence?
“The attorney general at the Supreme Court is appointed for life and that is an important guarantee for independence. At the same time, my appointment is very globally regulated. This is an appointment by Royal Decree on the nomination of the Minister of Justice. Precisely because the PG is assigned many tasks from its independent position in the state order that you expect by the State Sterfing. is hired by an appointment. “
A malicious minister can decide for himself who he appoints as a PG?
“Although there will be a recommendation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Supreme Court, that is not a binding recommendation. In other countries, including Belgium, it is stipulated, for example, that the PG comes from the public prosecutor, but we also do not know that guarantee. I see vulnerabilities.”
“Worldwide, the judge is increasingly being faulted when political goals are not achieved. That is worrying”
Recently, both from the judiciary and the science, it has been warned that the rule of law in the Netherlands is danger. Do you think so?
“There is an increase in sentiment worldwide in which the court is blamed if certain political goals are not achieved. That is indeed worrying. On the other hand, I think that it should not be answered too quickly with the end of the rule of law, if a minister or MP says he is surprised about a judge whether it does not agree.
“It becomes different if politics says:” I don’t agree with that statement so I am not going to execute him “or if politicians of a political agenda are accused. Then you get the integrity and independence of the judiciary. And that is something that worries me: that state powers sometimes point to each other when things go wrong.”
This takes place in various Western democracies and also the Dutch parliament. So do you find that worrying?
“On the one hand I share those worries. On the other hand, it is good to exercise self -control and not to use the concept of rule of law. For that it is too great a good. If you are too often the alarm about the rule of law, the signal becomes softer when it really matters.”
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