Netherlands: Van Traa Commission report
01 January 1996
The Parliamentary Investigations Commission into police methods, chaired by Mr Maarten Van Traa MP published its final report on 1 February after a year of intensive studies (see Statewatch, vol 5 nos 4 & 5). The Commission was set up after a series of scandals demonstrated how the authorities had apparently lost control over certain methods of covert policing.
The report speaks of a severe crisis in the criminal investigation policy touching the very foundations of the democratic rule of law involving everyone from detectives up to government ministers. The Commission comes to the conclusion that a complete overhaul of doctrine and working methods is required, after which every investigative method should be explicitly based on a written law. The method of covert importation and distribution of drugs, with the intention of gaining the confidence of criminals should be abandoned entirely, with the exception of a single test shipment of no more than a few kilos of cannabis products. The use of criminal civilian informers to actively infiltrate the criminal environment should also be terminated; only trained police under cover, or specialists such as accountants should be allowed to penetrate criminal organizations.
The Commission asserts that the so-called "IRT affair" (the scandal from which other investigations and the parliamentary inquiry originated) has caused great damage to society and has had a great impact on the public's trust in the ability of the authorities to combat serious crime in a democratic and effective manner. Over the last years, at least 285 tons of soft drugs and hundreds of kilos of hard drugs have been brought into the country under supervision of the law enforcement authorities, and about 100 tons of soft drugs and some of the hard drugs have subsequently disappeared to be sold on the market making the Dutch government the largest player in the cannabis market. Criminals, the report says, have earned millions in the process: one criminal informer turned infiltrator has earned an estimated 50 million guilders by selling the "controlled" drugs and keeping the profits. Another informer received two million guilders as "hush" money under direct orders from the Minister of Justice Mrs Winnie Sorgdrager. An entire regional criminal intelligence branch developed into an uncontrolled "state within a state"; its former chief and one of his staff are to be indicted for committing perjury while testifying under oath before the Commission. Criminal informants came to run police operations and virtually held the authorities hostage by claiming their lives to be in danger should the operations be terminated.
The Commission found that under the banner of fighting organized crime, a wide array of unregulated investigative methods has proliferated. Those responsible for maintaining the rule of law, including the public prosecutor's office, judges, police chiefs, and the ministry of justice, all remained largely ignorant of what was happening in the daily reality of crime-fighting. The former minister Mr Ernst Hirsch Ballin acted in an overtly "irresponsible" way by pleading ignorance about what those responsible to him were doing. All these authorities and parliament itself are to be held responsible for the serious situation.
The Commission advises that in the future, all information-gathering activities during an investigation ought to be written down in detail, so that the court can effectively oversee and judge every available piece of evidence. The so-called "closed CID procedure", which presently allows the possibility of hiding the origin of sensitive information, should no longer be allowed, although knowledge of certain most sensitive aspects should still be withheld from solicitors and their clients.
The 4,900 page report offers an unprecedented insight in the practices and doctrine of Dutch covert policing, with many details on almost every investigative method ever used. It detail