PrintOctober 26, 2010
The Dutch Grand Inquisitor Speaks
Geert Corstens, President of the Netherlands Supreme Court, maintains in Orwellian fashion that Dutch Parliamentarian leader Geert Wilders is "undermining" Dutch jurisprudence. As reported here,
Critical statements on jurisprudence such as Wilders has made during the proceedings against him have an "undermining" effect on jurisprudence, particularly as the leader of the PVV [Wilders' Party for Freedom] is also still a parliamentarian, according to Corstens. MPs should contribute to the stability of the constitutional state, said the president on television programme Buitenhof.
This past Friday (10/22/10), because the three sitting judges evidenced unacceptable bias, a special chamber of the Amsterdam district court ruled that the ongoing case against Wilders must be restarted with a different panel of judges. During a dinner in May 2010, Tom Schalken, one of the judges who gave the order to the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) to prosecute Wilders, attempted to persuade Islamologist Professor Hans Jansen, an expert witness for Wilders' defense, that the Dutch MP was guilty. Specifically, Jansen insists,
...over and over [Schalken] steered the conversation towards the Wilders trial... to convince me of the correctness of his [Schalken's] decision to drag Wilders to court.
And now another "objective" jurist -- the President of the Netherlands Supreme Court himself -- has made plain his own hideous bias proclaiming that Wilders defense of freedom of speech, let alone fair legal proceedings, somehow undermines Dutch "jurisprudence."
The Dutch Grand Inquisitor has spoken.
Below are relevant extracts from "The Grand Inquisitor" in Feodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (Translation by H.P. Blavatsky)
"Would Thou venture thither with Thy vague and undefined promise of freedom, which men, dull and unruly as they are by nature, are unable so much as to understand, which they avoid and fear?-for never was there anything more unbearable to the human race than personal freedom!".......Having disburdened his heart, the Inquisitor waits for some time to hear his prisoner speak in His turn. His silence weighs upon him. He has seen that his captive has been attentively listening to him all the time, with His eyes fixed penetratingly and softly on the face of his jailer, and evidently bent upon not replying to him. The old man longs to hear His voice, to hear Him reply; better words of bitterness and scorn than His silence. Suddenly He rises; slowly and silently approaching the Inquisitor, He bends towards him and softly kisses the bloodless, four-score and-ten-year-old lips. That is all the answer. The Grand Inquisitor shudders. There is a convulsive twitch at the corner of his mouth. He goes to the door, opens it, and addressing Him, "Go," he says, "go, and return no more... do not come again... never, never!' and-lets Him out into the dark night. The prisoner vanishes.""And the old man?" [asks Alyosha]"The kiss burns his heart, but the old man remains firm in his own ideas and unbelief." [replies Ivan]
