Rotterdam: Lawyer may stay sitting

Muslim fundamentalist and lawyer Mohammed Enait does not need to stand when the judges enter the courtroom.  Enait claims that standing up conflicts with his religion.  The court in Rotterdam agreed with him, reports NRC Handelsblad Friday.

According to the newspaper the court in Rotterdam had spoken with Enait about his behavior and had agreed that in extremely exceptional cases the lawyer may stay sitting, whenever deep religious convictions dictate so.

According to Enait, who recently became a lawyer, Islam states that all men are equal.  He therefore thinks he can not stand for others.  The public ministry had objections to this, according to a spokesperson, and raised the matter to the Bar Association and the Council for the Judiciary Act.   "It is common practice to stand for the judge."

Enait was formerly in the news after the Social Service refused him a job since he didn't want to shake hands with women.  The Rotterdam court dismissed Enait's objections on this last month.

Both the CDA government party and the opposition VVD think it's unacceptable.  VVD parliament member Henk Kamp reacted furiously to the news that Enait doesn't need to stand for the judges.  "This is cultural relativism to the extreme.  It is impermissible to allow this in a constitutional state.  Everybody must simply stand for the judge, period."

Kamp asked Minister of Integration Ella Vogelaar (PvdA) for explanations.

CDA parliament member Sybrand van Haersma Buma said that "it can't be so that an individual with extreme ideas can tackle general manners."  He says that everybody must respect the judges and jurisprudence in the same way.  "Everybody is equal.  That holds also for this man." 

He says the court must go back on its decision to make an exception for Enait.  Should that not happen, the Council for the Judiciary Act must make a general regulations staying that everybody must stand when the judges come in.

The court in Rotterdam was not available for comments Friday.

The Dutch bar association says that all lawyers must stand when the judges enter the courtroom, the head of the organization Willem Bekkers said in a radio interview Saturday.  Bekkers says that the requirement to stand does not appear in the law, but "the judicial power and the Bar have to respect each other."

"We are here in the Netherlands, where Dutch laws are in force," he says.  He points out that the lawyers swear respect for the judicial authorities and that you do not stand up for a person but for his authority.

According to Bekkers, if there will be a complaint on the issue to the Bar, an independent board of lawyers and judges would decide on whether the complaint is founded.  Bekkers doesn't expect the more lawyers will refuse to stand before judges.

Source: Trouw 1, 2; Telegraaf (Dutch)

See also: Netherlands: More on respect, Netherlands: Find another way to show respect, Update on recent news, Rotterdam: Court rules for municipality in handshaking case

1 comment:

Mark Tapson said...

"According to Enait, who recently became a lawyer, Islam states that all men are equal."

Has anyone challenged him to point specifically to a Koranic verse or hadith or anywhere in Islamic doctrine that states that ALL men are equal? This is simply a lie on his part, and especially offensive because it is the Christian West that originated and championed the notion that all men (and women) are equal. For Enait, infidels, who must be subjugated, converted, or killed, are most certainly not Muslim equals. And of course, neither are women, whose hands he will not shake.

The fact is, he won't stand because Islamists do not acknowlege the authority of infidel courts or law. And he knows he can humiliate the multicultural Dutch wimps by making them back down and grant him his exception in the name of religious tolerance.

This is contempt of court and he must be jailed for it. It is time to stop being jerked around by the Islamists who express open contempt and hatred for the West.