Bonum Certa Men Certa

When the EPO Came Under Fire From the Netherlands and Before Systemic Corruption Was Revealed

Dutch landscape



Summary: Questions that targeted the Dutch Minister of Justice amidst EPO abuses against staff and a shameful failure to enforce a court's decision

WE HAVE MISSED some very important developments due to absence (holiday), but fortunately enough we have loyal readers who sent us material in the interim, chronicling the earlier stages of the Dutch scandal which Battistelli had stepped into.



"For your information," said one source, "[f]ollowing the attempt of the Netherlands Justice Minister to prevent execution of the recent judgment against the EPO, two members of the national parliament (Tweede Kamer) have now put a series of questions to the Minister (see here). The European Patent Office (EPO) sure paid attention to the following questions, put forth to the Netherlands' Minister of Justice by Members of Parliament. As we shall soon find out (or at least cover later this week), there was a cover-up supported by crooks.

"An approximate translation," said our source, "is given below.

"Both members are from the Labour Party (PvdA) that currently forms a coalition government with the Liberal Party (VVD)."

For context, based on our source (see the original PDF which is in Dutch): "In July 2014 they posed the earlier questions referred to in Question 2 which were answered in August. On that occasion, the answers mainly referred to the EPO's immunity and the possibility for its employees to appeal to the ILOAT. Interestingly, the minister of social affairs answering those questions did seem to agree, referring to Art. 20 of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, that the EPO should comply with relevant Dutch legislation. However, the Dutch labour inspection could do nothing without permission of the EPO's president."

Here are the questions put to the Netherlands Minister of Justice by Members of Parliament:




Question 1. Are you aware of the article "Opstelten: Judicial ruling does not apply to European institution" ? (Volkskrant - 26 February 2015)

http://www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/opstelten-bureau-mag-vakbond-weren~a3873491/

Question 2. Do you remember the earlier questions regarding the working conditions at the EPO? Is it true that the tense situation continues to exist, including the restriction of the right to strike?

Question 3. Is it true that the EPO refuses to revoke the controversial measures in accordance with the appeal court's judgment? If yes, what are the reasons therefor?

Question 4. Is it true that you are not willing to enable the judgment's execution as is usual in The Netherlands? If yes, can you explain your position? What is the legal basis of your power to prevent the judgment's execution? How often have you made use of this power in the last five years?

Question 5. On which legislation and international treaties does your decision to block the judgment's execution rely? Have you considered a more dynamic application of the existing legislation?

Question 6. Can you give an overview of recent European and Dutch jurisprudence relating to conflicts between immunity of international organisations and judgments of domestic courts?

Question 7. What is your reaction to the opinion of experts that your position is at odds with the rule of law and that you prioritise immunity over human rights? What is your reaction to the statement that this erodes the authority of the courts? What is your reaction to the statement that this leads to a further worsening of the existing problem of international organisations that place themselves above the law?

Question 8. What do you mean when you say that the matter has "our attention" and "that of other member states"? What does this attention consist of and what is it aimed at?

Question 9. Is it possible that one of the parties appeals to the Hoge Raad (Dutch Supreme Court) or that "cassation in the interest of the law" is requested? Do you intend to request cassation in the interest of the law?

Question 10. Have you taken note of the recent ILO agreement between employers and employees regarding the right to strike and ILO Convention 87? Can you explain how the situation at the EPO relates to ILO Convention 87?




"Battistelli's reaction to the Dutch court decision," jokes our source ("just for fun"), would be something like the following:



We eagerly wait to share some press articles (translations take time to produce and process) about embarrassing news that led the Battistelli and the EPO to a frantic retreat. Probably as means of saving face only -- for we have no evidence of practical changes -- they now acknowledge of some staff rights, at least the very least a right to organise. It wouldn't have happened without political involvements across Europe.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day