Judges are not critical enough when deciding whether or not to remand someone in custody during a police investigation, the Dutch human rights commission said on Monday.

Last week it emerged that over four in 10 people held in Dutch jails had not been convicted of a crime, well above the EU average.

Researchers looked at over 300 cases from four lower and two appeal courts and found in four out of six cases there was no proper argument about why someone was being locked up.

In particular, most of the cases in which people were remanded in custody on the request of the public prosecution department had not been properly assessed.

One court used a form based on ticking boxes to decide if people should be kept in jail, while another used a standard text with sentences which could be crossed out. Neither form had any option for argument.

The commission said that locking people up before they had been convicted of a crime could have a major impact on jobs or social security benefits or could lead to problems at school or college.

Although the European treaty on human rights says people should be allowed to wait for their trial in freedom ‘the Dutch practice would appear to be based on the opposite, namely “lock up unless”,’ the researchers said.

Tagging

Electronic tagging and banning orders can also be used as an alternative, the commission pointed out.

Figures released by the European penal statistics agency Space last week said that in the Netherlands there are 53 people in jail for every 100,000 of the population, less than half the European average of nearly 116.

However, a high proportion of those in Dutch jails are on remand and waiting for a verdict to be reached in their cases. In total, over 43% of Dutch prisoners have not yet been convicted, compared with one in four in Europe as a whole.