Complaint filed against the Netherlands with the European Court of Human Rights

Bram Horenblas has filed a complaint against the Netherlands with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on behalf of a client. The complaint concerns the ease with which the client was placed in pre-trial detention for more than three months and the poor reasoning given by various authorities for doing so.

The client was arrested on suspicion of participating in or being an accomplice to robbery with violence at someone's home (commonly known as a home invasion). He was alleged to have driven the actual robber to and from the home. During the initial interrogation, he admitted that he had indeed driven the perpetrator, but that he had no prior knowledge of the crime and only later realized that a robbery had taken place at that residence. According to the defense, this meant that there was no intent to participate in or be an accomplice to the crime.

According to the complaint, various courts – from a certain point onwards – wrongly ruled that there were still sufficiently serious grounds for suspicion against the client. Various courts also accepted additional grounds too easily. At least one ground is required in order to place someone in pre-trial detention. In this case, the grounds were the so-called 'shock to the legal order' and recidivism. In response, reference was made, among other things, to the relatively minor seriousness of the offense in combination with the client's minor role in it, his clean criminal record, and the highly favorable probation report that had been issued at some point. Nevertheless, it took until the first pro forma hearing—after more than three months of pre-trial detention—before the client was released. The interim judgments do not reveal why it took so long.

You can read an anonymous version of the complaint here.