Legal assistance with fines and detention | Legal aid centre

Questioner

i was held hostage 4 months ago because i had 13 outstanding fines. i have served 8 of those fines and paid 5. is it possible that i am held hostage again now? because the remaining amount is quite high so i can't pay it all at once.

Lawyer

I assume that these are fines from the CJIB. The public prosecutor can, on the basis of article 28 paragraph 1 WAHV, request the subdistrict court judge to authorize him to apply the coercive measure of detention. There are several statements by subdistrict judges in which they are critical of the way in which the CJIB and the public prosecutor operate in these types of cases. In particular, the subdistrict judge in Bergen op Zoom has spoken out against this practice, from which a small selection: ' In his/her explanation of the coercive measure claim, the public prosecutor uses standard formulations that do not do sufficient justice to the individual case. After all, it is not sufficiently clear what actually happened. The subdistrict court judge does not wish to honour requests in this form (any longer). This is also not the case in cases in which the person concerned - although duly summoned - does not appear. It is understandable that efficiency/effectiveness is sought in the collection of these types of sanctions, but this may not lead to an infringement of the rights of a citizen in an individual procedure. A request such as the present one must be sufficiently motivated/substantiated. (....) Perhaps unnecessarily, the subdistrict court judge notes that he still has serious doubts about the ease with which this drastic measure of coercion is used on a large scale. The relevant judgment can be found here: http://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2013:6072 If you are ordered to take hostages again, I advise you to contact a lawyer immediately to prevent you from being taken hostage again.