In 2020, the Justice and Security Inspectorate withdrew a critical report about the inadequate control of weapons licenses after an intervention by top officials from the Ministry of Justice and Security.
Among other things, the inspection pointed to the lack of police personnel available to check weapons licenses. According to the ministry, the inspectorate should not have carried out this investigation.
The Court of Audit is critical of the state of affairs. If the Inspectorate had published the report, the House of Representatives and the Minister of Justice and Security would have been aware of the problems with the control of firearms licences.
It is “completely clear” that we are independent “in the choices we make and the subjects we tackle”, Inspector General of the Justice and Security Inspectorate Henk Korvinus emphasized last year in the house organ of the Ministry of Justice and Security. Korvinus is a lawyer and since the beginning of 2020 the most important supervisor at the department plagued by affairs and incidents.
The common thread in these affairs: the aim of the official departmental top to keep unwelcome information away from the ministers and the House of Representatives. This happened during the ‘receipt affair’ from 2015, when two ministers (Ivo Opstelten and Fred Teeven, both VVD) resigned after they had incorrectly informed the House about a deal with a criminal in 2002. That happened again during the WODC affair, when independent investigations into the policy of the department by top officials were turned around.
Also read about the WODC affair: ‘I was bugged when the minister rehabilitated me’
That time is behind us, said Inspector General Korvinus at the beginning of last year in the JenV magazine. “The top is now really starting to take supervision seriously.” According to the former judge and former chief public prosecutor, the ultimate winner is “the citizen”.
But who takes the trouble to check the Court of Auditors’ investigation published last week ‘Look at inspection reports’ If you read through, you must conclude that under Korvinus, sensitive information has also been withheld from the Inspectorate from government officials and the House of Representatives. It concerns a report that has never been published about staff shortages and inadequate checks at the Chief of Police teams, the police departments that check weapons licenses.
“During our investigation, we came across an unpublished follow-up investigation by the Inspectorate,” the Court of Audit notes. “If the report had been published, the report could have provided the minister and parliament with further insight into the personnel capacity for the Chief of Police teams and why this was not yet in order.”
The Court of Audit is critical: ‘We find it problematic that in an almost completed investigation by the Inspectorate, in which the efforts of the core department are also examined, there can be a discussion about whether the Inspectorate may investigate this and that the Inspectorate subsequently decides not to publish a study.”
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Digital screening
The control of weapons licenses has been a politically sensitive file since Tristan van de Vlis shot around eleven years ago in Alphen aan den Rijn. It is also a source of official disputes. The supervision of the permits (just like the control of private detective agencies and security guards) is controlled by the ministry, but carried out by the police. This combination has been the subject of discussions for years, including about who should pay for the checks.
When it turned out after the shooting in 2011 that Van der Vlis had psychological problems and should never have received a permit, the ministry devised a digital screening of applicants. But this system is already in jeopardy as a result of protests and lawsuits from the shooting and hunting world. Their complaint: gun owners of impeccable behavior suddenly threatened to lose their license after the ramshackle ‘e-screening’.
There was also fundamental criticism of the idea that a computer could detect potentially dangerous shooters on the basis of a questionnaire. For correct and careful inspection of permits, the Inspectorate concluded in 2016, first of all, more people are needed – at least a hundred extra full-time jobs. The controls are labor intensive.
The law prescribes that all approximately 70,000 holders of a firearms license are tested every year. They must personally visit the Chief of Police Department at a police station. The state of affairs there, according to director Sander Duisterhof of the Royal Dutch Shooting Sports Association: “You are outside again after 5 to 10 minutes, but you have to pay 68.20 euros in fees. It used to cost a tenner at the desk around the corner. This is centralized due to staff shortages: sometimes shooters have to drive 80 kilometers. We argue for a permit that is checked less often, for example once every five years.”
No authority
The follow-up investigation into the Chief of Police Tasks is in the project plan published by the Inspectorate on March 3, 2020, would be coordinated with the police and responsible judicial officers. It would then end up in parliament via the inspector-general and the top of the department, accompanied by a policy response from the minister.
In the spring of 2020, the inspectorate started work, documents were analyzed and an ‘expert session’ was held. As with three previous inspections, the conclusions were firm. In the words of the Court of Auditors: the capacity of the Chief of Police teams is ‘still not in order, there is a shortfall of 50 FTE out of 350 FTE’, ‘structural funding for personnel capacity’ is lacking, ‘the majority of police personnel is still not sufficiently and demonstrably trained’ and ‘paper files are still being used’.
After the summer, when the investigation had gone through the “internal review”, the ministry intervened. The responsible Directorate-General for the Police and Security Regions expressed strong criticism, after which the Inspectorate itself decided not to publish the investigation. This conversation between the Inspectorate and the Directorate concerned was not recorded.
‘No authority’
In September 2020, the Inspectorate’s own management team discussed the state of affairs. The report is withdrawn “because it does not contain an opinion on the quality of the performance of tasks”, the minutes say. ‘The draft report has never reached the minister,’ the Court of Audit concludes.
In a response, an inspectorate spokesman said it was “stupid” to launch an entire investigation into police staffing capacity, while the inspectorate has “no authority” to do so. “Unfortunately, that only became clear in an official conversation,” said the spokesperson. According to her, the independence of the inspectorate is not in question.
The ministry endorses this. “There has been no pressure whatsoever on the inspectorate to resume the report. That was the decision of the inspectorate itself,” an e-mailed a justice spokesperson.
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