Donner survives no confidence motion

4 June 2004

AMSTERDAM — Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has survived a no confidence motion in the Dutch Parliament, with only the opposition Labour PvdA party and the populist LPF calling for him to step down.

Donner faced censure after a school girl was kidnapped last month by a sex offender on temporary release from a secure psychiatric hospital.

LPF MP Joost Eerdmans tabled the no confidence motion when Donner refused to support his amendment which would have banned unsupervised temporary leave for inmates being held at TBS psychiatric clinics.

Eerdmans also called for convicted sex offenders to be chemically castrated, but Donner said such measures would be “inhuman”.

The PvdA supported Eerdmans’ no confidence motion, but Donner’s own Christian Democrat CDA backed him, as did coalition partners the Liberal VVD and Democrat D66.

In a letter to Parliament on Thursday, Donner said he was in favour of tightening the regulations governing temporary release for TBS inmates. He also wants to set up a central office to co-ordinate the tracking down of TBS prisoners who go on the run after being granted temporary leave.

But Eerdmans claimed these proposals were first floated a year ago when pensioner Piet van Harpen was murdered, apparently by a TBS patient who was on the run.

The PvdA surprisingly supported the LPF, even though PvdA MP Aleid Wolfsen said his party agreed with the measures announced by Donner.

Wolfsen said Donner should have implemented the measures a year ago.

Subject: Dutch news