Ajan Hirsi Ali, a brave critic of female mutilation and warrior against what she calls "political Islam," treated the readers of the Wall Street Journal to a blistering attack on the trial of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who holds the balance of power supporting the new conservative government (in Holland that means a weird combination of defense of welfare state for elderly whites, high mortgage deduction for homeowners, and go slow on bioethical changes and Sunday shopping).
Hirsi Ali is correct that the Netherlands does have a rather heavy handed state role in free speech (even once going so far as providing state subsidies to people advocating unpopular causes). What her article fails to note is that there is no equivalent of a bill of rights and constitutional review in the Netherlands. (The only route is to European human rights courts.) Parliament is sovereign and can interpret its own laws. (See here for my account of political nature of law in the Netherlands).
This means that now that he holds the levers of power, Wilders is free to promote laws that discriminate based on religious affiliation. (Most observers expect European law to overrule, but Sarkozy's treatment of the Roma suggests that little is to be expected from there.) This is not an idle concern; the new government actively promotes religious discrimInation (in various ways some based on clothing, some based on employment practice, in attacking). In practice, in the Netherlands there has been a wavering commitment to impartial rule of law, which Wilders is attacking cleverly in his trial. It probably was a political mistake to put Wilders on trial, especially because the presiding judge has been clumsy In his handling. But Hirsi Ali fails to ask how democracies are supposed to respond to illiberal policies when there is no legal culture of minority rights.
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