courtesy of Dutch News

The Amsterdam Appeal Court last week overturned Judge Bakel’s decision to request clarification of our EU rights by the ECJ.

The Appeal judges decided that the ECJ is the correct and only body that can clarify the issue of EU rights for UK citizens in the EU. They also ruled that the request is reasonable.

However, under political pressure from the Dutch government, the appeal judges decided that the case is not yet strong enough to merit the request going forward, as there is insufficient pain as yet. This argument was advanced by the State’s lawyer who rejoices in the wonderfully appropriate name of Av. Pijnbank-Horcrux. As many of you will know, Pijnbank translates to ‘torture table’ in English, and Horcrux is a cursed object which possesses part of the soul of Voldemort in the Harry Potter children’s books.

So now we have the strange situation of the Dutch joining the UK in cutting their noses off to spite their faces. The Dutch foreign affairs department spent taxpayers’ money to prevent Dutch businesses from asking for clarification of a situation that is damaging their profits, and hence reducing their ability to pay taxes to fund the department that is encouraging the damage to occur.

Now we must decide whether to spend further funds appealing the case to the Dutch Supreme Court. What a waste of time and resources that would be better spent on building our businesses to enable them to employ more people, make more profit and pay more tax!