E.I.F. v. Netherlands
From DADEL
Case Summary
E.I.F. v. Netherlands
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Communication No 15/1999 : Netherlands. 17/04/2001
CERD/C/58/D/15/1999
The author, E.I.F., a citizen of the Netherlands of Surinamese origin, claims a violation by the State party of Articles 2, 5, 6 and 7 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ("Convention”).
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Facts
The author claims to have been discharged from the Netherlands Police Academy (NPA) on racial grounds and recounts a number of instances of discrimination that allegedly took place during his training at the Academy between 1991 and 1993. He alleges that he was dismissed from the Academy in 1994 after a group of students led by him made a public statement in which they complained about the situation of foreign students. That statement, as well as pressure from the media, led to the appointment by the Minister of the Interior of the Boekraad Committee, whose mandate was to examine the complaints about the Police Academy. Although the Boekraad Committee concluded that there was no institutional discrimination at the NPA, it did state that discrimination occurred, and recommended that the NPA institute a specific anti-discrimination code.
The author brought his case before the Administrative Law Division of the Amsterdam Court, which, in its judgment of 3 April 1996, annulled the dismissal and recognized that the author had been subjected to discrimination. By its decision of 6 November 1997, the Central Appeals Court for the public service and social security matters in Utrecht ruled that the decision should stand.
Admissibility
The communication is admissible.
Merits
The Committee deemed some of the allegations submitted by the author to have racial connotations of a serious nature. However, they did not constitute the subject of the claims brought before the Amsterdam District Court and the Central Appeals Tribunal, which dealt mainly with the question of the dismissal from the Police Academy. Furthermore, it did not appear from the information received by the Committee that the decision to terminate the author's participation in the Police Academy was the result of discrimination on racial grounds.
Decision
The Committee determined that the facts, as submitted, did not disclose a violation of the Convention by the State party.