Kuijt v. the Netherlands
Grand Chamber rejects as inadmissible case concerning deliberation practice at Netherlands Supreme Court.
The Court has declared the application in the case of Kuijt v. the Netherlands inadmissible.
The case concerned the applicant’s complaint about the practice at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands by which judges of the Criminal Law Division who are not part of the judicial panel to which the case has been assigned may participate in the deliberations, without taking part in the vote. This is allowed in the interest of ensuring the uniform interpretation and application of the law and such Supreme Court judges are called “reservisten”.
The ECHR concluded that a legal avenue had been available to the applicant at national level to raise her complaint but that she had not used it. It would have been important to give the Supreme Court the opportunity to assess and respond to her criticisms of a well-known and long-standing internal practice that was intended to serve the purpose of ensuring the uniform application of the law. The decision underlines the importance of shared responsibility between national courts and the European Court, in line with the principle of subsidiarity.