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On 4 September 2020, the Rechtbank Amsterdam (District Court of Amsterdam) delivered an important judgment on the lawfulness of allegations contained in an investigative crime programme which targeted a private individual. The court laid down notable principles on the requisite factual basis for reporting serious allegations and on the use of hidden-camera footage by broadcasters, which has also been the subject of other recent rulings (see IRIS 2020-8/4). The case arose in January 2018, when the commercial broadcaster SBS6 broadcast an episode of its investigative programme Moord of zelfmoord...

On 4 September 2020, The Hague Court of Appeal delivered an important judgment on the appeal made by controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders over his conviction for comments made during a media interview and a televised speech (see IRIS 2017-2/25). Notably, the court of appeal upheld Wilders’ conviction for group insult, but set aside his conviction for incitement to discrimination. Similar to the lower court ruling, the court of appeal also decided not to impose a sentence on Wilders. The judgment contains important principles on a politician’s right to freedom of expression and...

On 31 August 2020, the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education and Media introduced a new bill to the Lower House of Parliament (Tweede Kamer), which will amend the Media Act (Mediawet) 2008, in order to strengthen the future of public broadcasting. The publication of the bill follows the Minister’s Letter to Parliament in June 2020 on the future of public broadcasting, which set out the Dutch Government’s plans for public broadcasting. The Minister also reached agreement on the proposed amendments with the public broadcasting organisation NPO (Nederlandse Publieke Omroep) earlier...

On 7 July 2020, the Rechtbank Amsterdam (District Court of Amsterdam) delivered a notable judgment on illegal content posted during a public broadcaster’s Facebook Live event. The content was held to fall under Article 137c of the Dutch Criminal Code, which forbids the public insult of a group of people based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  The facts of this case concern the comment of a 49-year-old man which he posted in the comment section of the public broadcaster NOS’s livestream of the Keti Koti festival, broadcast on Facebook Live. This is an annual...

On 2 June 2020, the Gerechtshof Amsterdam (Amsterdam Court of Appeal) delivered an important judgment in the case between Internet service providers (ISPs) Ziggo and XS4ALL against Stichting Brein, following years of litigation. Stichting Brein is a foundation formed by rightsholders to act against copyright piracy. Stichting Brein requested a dynamic blocking injunction against the two ISPs at the Court of The Hague in 2014 for not blocking access to The Pirate Bay (see IRIS 2014-3/37). The case made its way to the Netherlands Supreme Court (Hoge Raad der Nederlanden), who asked the Court of...