Citizens enforcing the law

In the Netherlands, the right of citizens to arrest the suspects of crime is the subject of debate. At stake is whether citizens engaging in law enforcement should be punished for taking the law into their own hands.
In the political sphere, it is argued that by enforcing the law, citizens are making a contribution to public safety in cases in which the state cannot
guarantee adequate protection. In the legal sphere, however, it is argued that this could open the gates for ‘eigenrichting’.

In this context, Astrid Bosch raises the following questions: Have the legal norms constraining citizens” right to enforce the law become outdated? Is
there, thus, a gap between the current legal and social opinions regarding citizen’s arrest? Would bridging this gap, by broadening the legal space for
citizen’s arrest, endanger the rule of law?

Astrid Bosch studied law at the Universidad Nacional de Nordeste in Argentina
and criminology at the Universität Hamburg in Germany. She is currently
in a GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) program,
working on issues of state and democracy in Bolivia.