The Court of Appeal in The Hague has reported an official misconduct by a councilor to the Public Prosecution Service. At the end of last year it became clear that the judge, one of the team leaders in the criminal section, deliberately signed incorrect verdicts in 43 minor criminal cases.
The justice made it appear as if the judgments had been delivered by a multiple criminal chamber of three justices. In reality they were single statements, made by only the councilor himself. As a result, the court wrongly declared approximately 110,000 euros too much for two years to the Council for the Judiciary. The Council, the national administrative body for the judiciary, announced in a press release on Monday that it would initiate a national external investigation to rule out that “this method has also been applied in other courts.” The Council said on Tuesday morning that it had no objective reason to assume this, but that it was merely a precaution.
The court stated that it had received “no understandable explanation” from the counselor in question, although there had been “frequent discussions” with each other in recent months. The fraud came to light at the end of last year. The judge in question is “no longer employed by the Judiciary,” the court says. The court will not say whether the judge has been dismissed or has left. In addition to reporting to the Public Prosecution Service, the Attorney General of the Supreme Court, legally charged with supervising the administration of justice, has also been informed.
Until both authorities give a ruling, the court speaks of a method that “may be contrary to the law” and that involved “possibly unlawful conduct”. In any case, it is certain that an “incorrect representation of the facts” was given. There was no personal financial gain, nor any direct consequences for the citizen.
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43 such statements
The criminal cases involved mainly involved declarations of inadmissibility of sentences by police judges at courts. The court makes such rulings if the suspect does not appear at the hearing after being summoned. And also did not make it clear through a lawyer what the objections were to the lower court’s judgment. In such cases, a ‘declaration of inadmissibility’ will follow at criminal docket hearings, at which the handling of cases is planned. The court then does not ‘receive’ the appeal and closes the case without substantive hearing with a summary judgment. The judge in question then also signed 43 such statements with the names of two colleagues, who knew nothing about it.
The court in The Hague has now settled the excess amount received internally with the Council for the Judiciary. The Court may charge 476 euros for a single ruling, 3,052 euros for a multiple ruling. The Hague Court of Appeal rules in approximately ten thousand criminal cases every year.
The error came to light through an internal report. During judgments, it is more common for judges to be absent and unable to sign. This is then resolved by mentioning their names at the bottom of the judgment, with the formula that they were ‘unable to sign’. In this way the councilor managed to involve his two colleagues.
Last summer, a councilor at the court of The Hague also had to leave. She had tried behind the scenes to influence the Public Prosecution Service in the MH17 case with conspiracy theories.