A salary scale the ECJ had found discriminatory and said should be changed, was not discriminatory after the change.

It is ultimately for the courts to verify whether religious organisations can legitimately invoke occupational requirements as a reason for unequal treatment.

The Finnish Labour Court recently decided a case about the transfer of a business and the associated obligation to harmonise employees’ salaries. The Court held that the employer had not shown good reasons for continuing to pay different salaries to employees with equivalent responsibilities long after the transfer.

The abuse of successive fixed-term contracts in the public sector can be treated differently to the abuse of successive fixed-term contracts in the private sector, as long as the measures in place fulfil the principles of effectiveness and dissuasion and effectiveness. This must be verified by the national court.

Lobbying by interest groups and the formation of governments both are established themes of empirical research, but not much is known about their linkage. This article presents an exploratory study of organizations and groups with interests seeking influence on the political agenda at the earliest stage of a governmental life cycle: its formation. From the theoretical perspective of the politics of attention, an empirical study is made of the lobby papers that government informateurs receive from business, non-profitorganizations and ngo’s, public organizations and citizens or citizen groups. By comparing the lobby agenda of these diverse organizations and groups to the coalition agreement, it is possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about whose issues and themes become visible and prominent on the governmental agenda, and whose topics obtain lower priority. This research is a basis for further analysis of the impact of lobbying on the policy agenda.

In this paper we look at the way in which a wide range of interest groups have tried to influence political parties in Flanders. In order to test both aspects of the historic-institutional perspective and the rational choice perspective on party-group relations, we have analyzed the dissemination of in total 1569 memoranda by 616 interest groups over the six represented Flemish political parties in the 2013-2014 election year. We find that interest groups are very selective in the distribution of their memoranda to the different parties. Traditional parties seem more popular than new parties and political effectiveness seems to be the driver behind the selectivity of the large majority of the interest groups studied in this paper.

The revolving door is an ambiguous concept evoking strong opinions, and often is seen to lead to a decline in trust and legitimacy of the policy-making system of the Netherlands. But the different moral objections against the revolving door between functions and jobs in public and private organizations are barely matched with systematic empirical evidence of negative effects on the policy-making system. In this article, a definition of the concept is presented in order to help focusing the discussion on moral objections and practical implications of the revolving door. Two fundamental contradictions emerge from the panoply of arguments and assertions about this phenomenon. With our definition as a basis, we consider the different forms of the revolving door and discuss conditions under which it may be contained without solutions that are disproportionate to the problem. The way out is to develop clearer norms and integrity-enhancing mechanisms with which negative effects may be avoided and positive effects strengthened.

Should we consider local authorities and their associations as a formal government layer when they interact with the European institutions in order to influence EU legislation, or should this be classified as informal territorial interest group behaviour? This paper discusses the role and the influence of local authorities in the European decision-making process. Based on a literature review, the paper contrasts both positions in terms of theoretical underpinning, practical implementation and academic state of affairs. The paper demonstrates that whilst the formal perspective has gained more leeway in the official European policy discourse and subsequent institutionalisation in recent decades, it is often insufficient to guarantee the effective inclusion of local authorities in EU policy-making. Interest group action, i.e. lobbying, might therefore still be a more practical and powerful way of promoting local political interests in the European policy arena.

De Ruiter en Van Pol (2017) presenteren als vaststaand feit dat slechts 10% of minder van alle beschuldigingen van kindermishandeling in echtscheidingsconflicten vals is. Sociale en juridische professionals die in een enquête een hoger percentage invulden, hebben volgens de auteurs te weinig kennis. De zekerheid die De Ruiter en Van Pol suggereren bestaat niet. Ten eerste verzuimen zij om de kernbegrippen ‘vals’, ‘beschuldiging’, ‘kindermishandeling’ en ‘echtscheidingsconflicten’ te definiëren. Ten tweede kan het onderzoek waar De Ruiter en Van Pol naar verwijzen hun conclusies niet dragen. Canadese maatschappelijk werkers registreerden slechts in een klein aantal gevallen dat een beschuldiging opzettelijk vals was. De Canadese auteurs wijzen expliciet op het subjectieve karakter van de bron van onderzoek. In meer dan de helft van alle onderzochte zaken was het onzeker gebleven of de beschuldiging op waarheid berust. Ten derde gaat het om onderzoeken naar de praktijk van de kinderbescherming in Canada en Australië van 20 jaar geleden. Dat wil zeggen: een andere tijd in andere landen, met een ander systeem dan vandaag in Nederland. Sociale en juridische professionals moeten werken met een aanzienlijke marge van onzekerheid, ook wanneer er grondig onderzoek naar de feiten gedaan is. Door deze onzekerheid te negeren mist de kritiek van De Ruiter en Van Pol op grote groepen professionals onderbouwing.
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De Ruiter & Van Pol (2017) present as a fact, that only 10% or less of all allegations of child abuse and neglect in divorce disputes is false. They state that social workers and lawyers who in a survey estimated a higher percentage have a lack of knowledge. With this position De Ruiter & Van Pol claim a grade of certainty that does not exist in child protection practice. First, the authors fail to define the key concepts ‘false’, ‘allegation’, ‘child abuse’ and ‘divorce disputes’. Second, the research De Ruiter & Van Pol refer to does not carry the conclusions they draw. The Canadian researchers report that child protection workers had classified a small percentage of cases as ‘intentionally fabricated’. However, the researchers make reservations about this finding since the source is the clinical judgment of the social workers. Moreover the researches emphasize that custody disputes is a context in which there is a high rate of unsubstantiated allegations. In fact, over 50% of all cases were not substantiated.
Third, the three publications De Ruiter & Van Pol point at describe the practice in Australia and Canada twenty years ago. That is a different time in different countries with different systems compared to The Netherlands today. Social workers and judicial professionals work in a context of uncertainty about allegations and facts in many cases, even after thorough investigation in a particular case. In overlooking this uncertainty De Ruiter & Van Pol unfairly criticize large groups of professionals.