Remuneration and severance schemes in the judiciary

In 2005 and 2006 the Netherlands Court of Audit carried out an audit of the remunerations and severance schemes for senior civil servants. This audit was carried out at the request of the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK). The Minister made the request on behalf of the Government. No officials in the judiciary were involved at this stage of the investigation; we therefore examined this group in the second half of 2006. This concerns senior civil servants in the Council for the Judiciary, The Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad) and the Public Prosecution Service. The results of this investigation are contained in three separate reports.

The most important conclusion is that remunerations and severance schemes for senior civil servants in the judiciary in 2005 and the second half of 2006 were generally carried out in compliance with the rules. Of the three branches of the judiciary, the Public Prosecutions Department scored lowest for compliance with the rules.

Generally speaking, it can be said that no structural faults could be found and practically no unlawful payments were made. Mistakes made, sometimes to the detriment of the parties involved, were often attributable to ambiguous rules. In cooperation with the Supreme Court, the Public Prosecutions Service and the Council for the Judiciary, the Minister will take measures to eliminate ambiguities in the rules such as those pertaining, for example, to the issue of expense allowances and special leave.

Compared with earlier investigations into remunerations and severance schemes for senior civil servants, the number of mistakes made by the judiciary is much lower. The Court of Audit published an investigation into remunerations of senior civil servants in April 2005. The findings indicated that decisions relating to appointments, extra remunerations, supplements and expense allowances, among others, were not taken with due care.

In May 2006, a report on an investigation into the severance schemes of senior civil servants in 2004/2005 was published. This also pointed to shortcomings and sometimes formal mistakes involving the Royal Decree. In other cases financial errors were made. These involved, among others, bonuses, unauthorised payment of expense allowances or more leave exchange than is permissible.