Persoonlijke aansprakelijkheid van politieke ambtsdragers

Personal liability of political office holders When Dutch political office holders cause damages with their actions, the question is who should bear this damage. For the injured party, the government is a good point of contact, the government has deep pockets and relieves the injured party of the task of determining whether he can hold a political office holder personally liable. However, government capital belongs to all of us and deserves protection against the financial consequences of mistakes made by political office holders. Private law has a specific arrangement for the recovery of damages from directors. In this article, the author discusses several accountability mechanisms known in constitutional law and argues that they are not geared to holding political office holders liable. Relevant points of the article for practice are: (1) the existing accountability mechanisms do not provide adequate protection of government finances against damages caused by political office holders; (b) the accounting accountability does not provide a sanctioning mechanism and activates political accountability; (c) a personal assessment of whether or not to hold someone liable for damages caused by political office holders must be made on a case-by-case basis and a conscious decision must be made about this.