There were boos when Councillor Martin van Meurs appeared in the Arnhem city council chamber on Monday evening. Earlier this year he was convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography. He was jailed, but having served time on remand he has already been released. “I deserve a second chance,” he says. Not everyone agrees with him.

By Philip Smet en Maike Winters

There are those who say politicians should be allowed to make mistakes. Others believe they ought to be beyond reproach. The Netherlands has no standard screening procedure for electoral candidates. To avoid being taken by surprise by skeletons in the cupboard, political parties often make their own checks on party members. The government screens only mayoral or ministerial candidates.

Arnhem Councillor Martin van Meurs had already been elected when he was convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography. The 60-year-old politician was thrown out of his party. But now he’s returned to his seat as an independent councillor.

Exemplary role
The city’s mayor, Pauline Krikke, says there’s nothing she can do to stop him. “We’re all struggling with it, but Councillor Martin van Meurs has the legal right to take his seat as councillor again,” she says. “We have to give him the opportunity. That’s democracy.”

According to the law it’s not possible to remove an elected representative from his or her seat. Only a court can strip a person of his or her electoral rights. It’s a situation the Labour Party in the Lower House would like to see changed.

Labour Party MP Pierre Heijnen submitted questions to the interior minister in response to the Van Meurs affair. “Everyone deserves a second chance, but not if you’re in an exemplary role,” he says.

The then minister Piet Hein Donner (he was succeeded last week by Liesbeth Spies) answered that he had no intention of introducing special rules for politicians who have been served jail terms of less than a year.

Sex and violence  
Mr Heijnen isn’t letting the matter drop. He says local councils should be able to apply to a court to have a person’s right to act as an elected representative removed. At present councils are unable to take such a step. Indeed, it’s extremely rare for a court to suspend a person’s electoral rights under any circumstances.

It’s not the length of the jail sentence that should matter, Mr Heijnen believes, but the nature of the crime. Representatives convicted of violent or sexual offences should not be allowed to retake their seats, he says.

Sinister
Legal philosopher Arend Soeteman, emeritus professor at the VU University Amsterdam, finds it hard to stomach the idea of removing elected representatives from their seats. Martin van Meurs was elected by the people, the professor says, and the democratic process will take its course. Mr Van Meurs now represents very few voters, Professor Soeteman concludes, so there is little chance of his being re-elected.

Professor Soeteman does not agree that the law should be changed to make it easier to eject politicians from their seats. “That’s something you should steer clear of, it’s a dodgy business to start tampering with the democratic process,” he says. “Members of small parties that oppose the majority could then easily be removed from their positions. That’s dangerous and sinister. The voters will decide the fates of politicians with criminal convictions.”

Drink driving
At present there are seven MPs in the Lower House with criminal records, a survey by RTL television news revealed a year ago. Five of them were members of Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party. A Green Left party MP was once fined for riding on the train without a ticket, and a conservative VVD party MP lost his driving licence for drink driving 30 years ago.

MEP Daniël van der Stoep resigned his seat this summer because he had caused an accident while drunk behind the wheel. The Freedom Party member now says he wants to retake his seat in the European parliament. He also thinks he deserves a second chance. His party will discuss the matter in a meeting on Wednesday.

(mb/rk)