Minister Yesilgöz under fire after ruling on manslaughter: ‘This was feared’

Yesterday, a majority of the House of Representatives voted in favor of the cabinet’s proposal to increase the maximum prison sentence for manslaughter from 15 to 25 years. The parties agree with Justice Minister Dilan Yesilgöz that the current ‘penalty gap’ of 15 years between murder and manslaughter is too large. It looks like the bill will also get a majority in the Senate.

Yesterday, Yesilgöz explained in the House of Representatives why, according to her, the penalty for manslaughter should be increased. “Manslaughter is not just about ruthless settlements in the context of organized and subversive crime. It also deals with intimate partner violence, in which young women are deliberately killed, sometimes in front of their children.”

The fragment in question, which Yesilgöz himself shared on Twitter, is astonishing among criminal lawyers. ‘Manslaughter, which is different from premeditated murder, refers to ruthless settlements in the underworld, according to her. This is what the criticism saw when there was a fear of a non-heavyweight lawyer on this post,” writes counsel Job Knoester, who once accused Yesilgöz on a talk show that she did not know the law.

Cold-blooded liquidations in the criminal circuit do not fall under manslaughter at all, notes lawyer Bo Salomons. ‘Manslaughter is, by definition, a premeditated killing. Death was inflicted intentionally, but without plan or preparation. Settlement by definition does not fall under this,’ he explains. Similar sounds are heard from the legal profession. ‘When a minister says that manslaughter also involves ruthless settlements in organized crime, you immediately know how well thought out this bill is’, judges criminal lawyer Paul Verweijen.

The appointment of VVD member Dilan Yesilgöz as chief of Security and Justice raised eyebrows among lawyers. For the first time, the Netherlands has a Minister of Justice who has not studied law. According to lawyer Sidney Smeets, this is now starting to stand out. ‘Perhaps a lawyer would have been useful, it would have been such nonsense if debited were prevented here: a settlement in the criminal circuit (ruthless, that is) is without embarrassment (or knowledge) put away as ‘mere’ ‘manslaughter’ and so the punishment must be up,” he writes.

A spokesman for Yesgilöz states that ‘in some cases murder and manslaughter can actually be close to each other’. ,,So to say that there are only murders in organized crime and no manslaughter seems to me rather short sighted. The bill aims to bring murder and manslaughter closer together. There was now a 15-year difference between them.” And: “Murder is often difficult to prove. That is why it is good that murder and manslaughter come closer together.”

Incidentally, Yesilgöz did a good job as minister at the police unions last week. After months of haggling, a negotiation agreement was reached on a new police collective labor agreement. “This does justice to all people who work for the police and also to the extra heavy work of executive police officers in an uncertain time,” the unions said.