How is the UvA preparing criminal justice students for the tough criminal climate?

Concerns among students
The case illustrates that public figures such as lawyers and crime journalists are increasingly at risk in cases involving organized crime - sometimes with fatal consequences. Lawyer Derk Wiersum and his confidant Peter R. de Vries were killed. Both were associated with the star witness in the case, Nabil B, whose brother was also shot.
 
It made Kampinga think more consciously about whether she wants to become a criminal lawyer. “But I have such a passion for criminal law that I want to pursue it despite the adverse effects that come with the work. But, she continues in fairness, the “hardening of the practice of criminal law” continues to worry her. That’s not only true for her, by the way, she explains: “It’s alive and well among many law students.”
 
The question arises: how does the UvA deal with these concerns in education? Is the university properly preparing criminal law students for this hardened criminal climate in the Netherlands?

Sharing experiences
“It’s one of the few trials that almost all students have been exposed to,” says criminal justice professor Malou Hamers about the Taghi case. “So we try to incorporate it into teaching as much as possible.” This year, for example, Onno de Jong, at the time one of the two lawyers of key witness Nabil B. (who has since resigned from that position for unknown reasons), came and gave a guest lecture to master’s students in criminal law.

Three security guards assisted him. All bags, student cards, and IDs were thoroughly checked beforehand. “Then as a student, you do feel the impact of such a process,” says Hamer. “And also for me personally it was terrifying to see that a lawyer had to come to the UvA with three security guards.”
 
Kampinga, too, was affected. “You saw the impact it has on his life, something you don’t learn from textbooks.” She found the conversation with De Jong “incredibly cool” and “very interesting,” but has also become aware of how great the pressure can be. “You shouldn’t underestimate it.”
 
Other lawyers, police officers, and officers who deal a lot with undermining - the mixing of the underworld and visible world by criminals using legitimate businesses - also came on other days to share their experiences. Frank Wieland, a former judge in the trial of Willem Holleeder, among others, visited the criminal law students to talk about the changes within criminal law.

Setting up a criminal organization
Most of the guest lectures took place as part of the course “Organized Crime,” which was added to the criminal law master’s curriculum last academic year. This relatively new course requires students to role play a fictitious case in which they have to set up a criminal organization themselves.
 
The other group must tackle it at an early stage in the role of prosecutor or mayor. Thus, the students learn “what the effects of organized crime are on society and how it relates to national security.” That makes it essentially a criminology course rather than a traditional criminal justice course.
 
It’s “a unique subject,” thinks master’s student in criminal justice Laura Moors. “It was one of the courses I was most looking forward to and it was very interesting. It was taught super practically.”
 
In other courses in the criminal law master’s program, the Marengo trial comes up briefly, Moors says, but “it is not really addressed otherwise. It’s not the subject of the lectures.” Kampinga agrees: “In a general sense, the Marengo process is not really dwelled upon in teaching. It’s not central to the master’s.” And that is a shame, she thinks, “because especially when you look at how many criminal lawyers are threatened, it is something I would like to see more attention paid to in
in the program.”

Debbie Kampinga

Dealing with pressure and fear
There is still the subject Advocacy and Professional Ethics, she adds, “in which you learn to deal with pressure from your client. But that’s an elective, and besides, it covers all different areas of law.” According to Hamers, that course is, among other things, about who you hire as a lawyer. Criminal law, by the way, has not yet been covered, but it will also only last one week.
 
According to another student who also works as a student ambassador for the program the case is regularly discussed in classes, and in Professional Ethics, for example, what exactly it means as a lawyer to be suspected of participating in a criminal organization comes up. “Inez Weski is not the first and probably not the last lawyer to be arrested based on this suspicion,” she thinks. “We talk about this possibility and how to act on it.”
 
Moors notices more caution among fellow students about what kind of cases they might want to take on in the future as criminal lawyers. “I think fewer people are eager to assist people on the drug circuit.”
 
Taghi’s legal position
But it certainly leads to discussions, even outside the university. For example, according to lecturer Hamers, criminal justice students are increasingly being asked by family members, “Are you sure you want to do this work?”
 
In addition to the Organized Crime master’s course, Hamers also teaches formal criminal law, a course from the bachelor’s program. She says she tries to reflect on the process as much as possible in those classes. After all, Inez Weski’s arrest fits seamlessly with the material students have to learn in the formal criminal law course.
 
“This involves issues such as pre-trial detention and search, now at play in Weski’s case. Students are interested in that and criticize searching the office of a person entitled to privilege (lawyer, ed.). They also wonder how this affects Taghi’s legal position.”
 
After all, he is pretty much the personification of organized crime, Hamers says. “So it captures the imagination. This makes it easy to keep him and the Marengo trial as a point of reference.”