The Volokh Conspiracy

My God, what madness. Pretty soon they're going to need to import lawyers to cover the caseloads.

I can't imagine why a country would invite this of a kind of administrative nightmare/tyranny upon itself.

The articles make it sound as if they don't really plan to enforce the law, or that the standard for violation is high. Even so...

What I took away from the Radio Netherlands article is that the government seems only to have a vague intention rather than a bill or other specific proposal.

I can't find the right not to be offended in the Constitution, the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, or even the Fundamental Declarations of the Martian Colonies.

This is very unlike the Dutch.

The First Amendment is a very special thing indeed, especially since a majority of Americans believe it "goes too far" and there's no way in hell it would be ratified today. It's special because it's a wonderful anacronism that has somehow managed to survive solely due to reverence (repealing the First Amendment sounds so damn unamerican that nobody would come out and actually propose it).

I disagree that it is very unlike the Dutch - they pass all kinds of laws that they have no intention of enforcing.

The reason you are having trouble finding factual information right now, Professor, is that the new law is not yet formulated. The only actual taken thus far is that they have repealed the old law against blasphemy (before we go off criticizing the new law, stop and consider that that one was on the books for so long).

They still want to have some law on speech, though, to encourage the "samenleving", i.e., the "together-living", the social unity of society, or whatever it is that generally keeps the Muslims there from acting like the Muslims in France and the Christians there from acting like the Christians in America (this is their opinion, not mine, just passing along my experience). So, they are proposing a new one, this one targeted, as they said, at words which target individual groups as groups.

In this way, many critics claims that this new law will simply be a "lazarus" for the old law, allowing the old blasphemy based restrictions to still exist since it will still be (officially and formally) forbidden to attack Muslims as Muslims, or Christians as Christians. Added, though, will be that it will include, likely quite literally, any other group qua group, so handicapped people qua handicapped people, homosexuals qua homosexuals, etc.

Not the kind of thing you'd approve of, I'd imagine, though in this regard, one really should keep in mind that they have a very different opinion of the role of the rule of law than we do - inconsistency in the law, or gaps between the law and reality drives us mad, while for them it is to be expected. Additionally, as was expressed above with 'this is very unlike the Dutch comment', civil society is much more tolerant there than here. I know it's not much respite to a law professor, whose life is spent studying the state's regulation of its people, but the practical effect is that there will not be a noticeable difference in the aggregate level of freedom between there and here...

...or at least that's what I'm telling myself...

Presuming it is enacted as stated in the post, the enforcement will be interesting.
Theo van Gogh would have been in jail, so he might not have been murdered. Depending on the security situation in jail. I gather some jail security is so good that one Dutch politician resides there for his own protection.
Ya, I can see love and little ponies coming from this, you bet.

(face pressed against glass, voice muffled):

Help me! I'm stuck in the non-existent Saturday!!

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

The problem with this is the possibility that prosecutions will be politically motivated. Powerline's Belgium Shrugged discusses "the harrowing case of Bart Debie, who has just begun serving a one-year prison sentence for "racism,"

"Debie then committed his real "offense." He decided to decided to run for a seat on the Antwerp city council as a member of the Vlaams Belang party. To make matters, he was elected.

Vlaams Belang seeks Flemish independence from Belgium through the political process, and it opposes the Islamization of European culture. Consequently, it is hated by Belgium's left-wing establishment which, as Diana observes, encourages such Islamization "in part to help increase their own constituencies."

After Debie became a political force, the prosecution appealed his case. This time it secured a "racism" conviction for remarks Debie didn't make during an incident at which he was not present. In addition to a stiff fine and a prison sentence of one year, the government of Belgium has stripped him of his political and civil rights for 12 years locally and five years nationally. Debie is not even certain if he can proceed with his marriage plans."

Based on the content of Bill Poser's article, it sounds like the majority of Dutch legislators are planning to repeal a blasphemy law that Islamist radicals were using in attempts to stifle criticism of Islam. Unfortunately, some number of Dutch legislators may at the same time be thinking about strengthening other laws that can be used for the same purpose. Until further details are forthcoming it may be wise to rejoice in what is definitely about to happen and suspend judgment on what may or may not become law.

In future, it will be punishable to give serious offence to any group of people.

I can't wait for the defenses from those who say they were only giving frivolous offense to people.

Blasphemy is considered a felony in the Netherlands punishable with a sentece up to three months in jail. I cannot remember anyone being prosecuted for blasphemy since the 70's. A famous dutch writer then wrote about God being a donkey he would have sex with. A scandal ensued, but if I remember correctly he was cleared on appeal (after being convicted in the first instance).

Insult can be a crime as well. Article 261 and 262 of our Penal Code ("wetboek van Strafrecht") prohibit libel. Article 263 prohibits (my translation): "each intentional insult not being libel, albeit in public in speech, writing, drawing, albeit when someone is present in speech or by actions, albeit it in written when sent or offered to a person".

The Dutch constitution does not have a right to the freedom of speech as such. It does have a right to a free press, although some argue that the freedom as speech has to be read in to the article ensuring the free press. However the freedom of the press can be limited by statute.

In as far as this article (or a new one) will be in conflict with article 10 of the ECHR (freedom of speech), it cannot be enforced.

Your Lordship:

"Bart Debie was convicted of police brutality for, among other things, beating Turkish arrestees when he was police commissioner."

The article says he wasn't at the location where the incident took place.

Oh well, one of the article referred to above already cited the Gerard Reve case (in which he had sex with god/donkey)...

Davod - actually, according to Wikipedia Debie was convicted at trial, although the appeal court increased his sentence from three years to four years, and added convictions for other offences. It seems Debie was acquitted of "incitement to racism" at trial, and then convicted by the appeal court, but it seems wrong to imply he got off after the trial.

If it is correct that the trial court sentenced him to three years while acquitting him of "racism" it seems especially misleading to suggest all he was convicted for was "racism". (Aside from the "true offence" of "run for a seat on the Antwerp city council", of course, a characterization which conveniently forgets whatever crimes landed him the initial three year sentence.)

I'm not pretending to have much understanding of what happened, but when all I know is that PowerLine says substantially which is substantial inconsistent with Wikipedia I am inclined not to believe the PowerLine account.

Just to clear things up above, bill 137c, the broader anti-discrimination provision, is still going to come. As has been noted, the only thing done so far has been the repeal of the blasphemy law - an expansion of freedom of speech opposed by the Christian Unity party, amongst others - but the other law is still coming.

Whoops, in my post I forgot that we allready have article 137c Dutch penal code, which further to the prohibitions I mentioned above states:

"A person who publicly, either orally or in writing or by image, intentionally makes a defamatory statement about a group of persons on the grounds of their race, religion or personal beliefs, or their hetero- or homosexual orientation, is liable to a term of imprisonment of not more than one year or a fine of the third category."

There is not yet a specific proposal for the new article, but the Ministry of Justice has declared in a letter to parliament that the prohibition will remain as is but after the word intentionally the words "directly or indirectly" will be added. According to the Minister this will clarify that not only intentionally insulting a group on the aforementioned grounds will be prohibited, but defaming someone because he is part of a religious group will be as well.

By the way, article 137c of the Dutch penal code seems to be the implementation of a human rights treaty aiming to outlaw racial discrimination.

And finally, a properly sourced translation of article 137c: link

So for a while the Dutch can dis each others religion. Way cool, I guess.

After that, lets say you have some crazy idol-worshiper who worships his own butt-hole. So if somebody says "The butt-hole worshipers are butt-holes", they can go to jail? And it was this way last year as well?

How about if somebody says "The retarded are stupid!". Hard time?

I do like the idea of Holland importing lawyers, though. There are too many in the States. We can ship over all the lawyers and then bomb the dikes...