A bomb under the Wilders retrial

The end of the first trial

This blog just featured a post about the Amsterdam Court's intention to set up a retrial for Geert Wilders. The previous trial ended in a defeat for the court and a victory for Geert Wilders, when the latter was granted substitution of the judges for bias. I did some checking on the antecedents of the new judges on by-offices and such.

Registers of by-offices

For checking I used namenlijst.rechtspraak.nl and Burhoven. Rechtspraak.nl has a register of side jobs and by-offices of judges. It get its information from the judges themselves. Burhoven is a resource set up by a whistelblower which has tons of background information on legal functionaries, including judges. It seems to feed itself from traditional paper publications in the form of registers in book form published by the courts and the ministry of Justice.

Two passes

I checked on the three surnames. I found nothing at all for judge Van Oosten. Junior judge Boeree has one job next to her job as a judge. She is a teacher at OSR/SSR. A check on the internet shows this is an educational organisation for people working in the legal field. So far so good. Checking on senior judge G.P.C. Janssen I found three innocious jobs in the rechtspraak.nl ledger. I found nothing on judges Boeree and Van Oosten on the aforementioned Burhoven private resource on by-offices of legal functionaries.

The appearance of bias rears its ugly head again

But on checking judge G.P.C. Janssen I discovered he has a side job which is not registered on rechtspraak.nl. He is Voorzitter Stichting Rechtsbijstand Asiel Amsterdam in Amsterdam since January 1, 2000. That says he is the Chairman of the refugee legal aid foundation. An organisation which can be expected to be hostile to the aims of a politician who is trying to restrict the abilities of third world and muslim refugees such as Mr. Wilders. Comparing the other details in both the rechtspraak.nl and the Burhoven register, both entries concern the same person.

The bias bomb

If this entry in the latter register is correct, there is an "appearance of bias", which caused the previous judges to be substituted.