The committee that monitors the integrity of MPs wants the leader of the Forum for Democracy, Thierry Baudet, to be banned from meetings of the House of Representatives for seven days. He was only allowed to vote. According to the committee, Baudet should also be reprimanded.

On behalf of the Bureau, House Executive President Bergkamp relayed the committee’s advice to lawmakers. They will vote on the sanctions against Baudet next Tuesday.

According to the Committee (in full: Dutch House of Representatives Committee of Inquiry), Baudet violated the Chamber’s code of conduct by not registering his board membership of a limited liability company in the register of outside activities. The college believes he should still do so. It is Amsterdam Media Group BV, which is engaged in ‘administration of a publishing house and other management activities’.

Independent experts

The board does not consist of MPs, but of three independent experts. The former State Councilor in the State Council, Liesbeth Horstink, chairs the board. An investigation was launched in response to a complaint about Baudet and his group members Jansen and Van Meijeren.

If Baudet is actually banned for a week, that’s unique. MPs were previously banned from taking part in a debate. That’s what happened to Baudet himself during the General Political Reflections last month, after he called a lecture at Oxford, where Minister Kaag had studied “a training institute for Western intelligence”.

Sanctions also proposed for Jansen and Van Meijeren

The Integrity Committee also recommends reprimanding Forum MPs Jansen and Van Meijeren. They must also register their board membership with Amsterdam Media Group BV. That the Integrity College is proposing a tougher sentence for Baudet is because he was also reprimanded in March. Even then, it was about not giving up extensions. The House then accepted the advice of the quorum.

In proposing to impose sanctions on the three MPs, the board took into account that they “did not cooperate in any way with the investigation”. Furthermore, the Integrity Committee writes that it was unable to determine whether the three received additional income, nor whether they violated the obligation to disclose income. The experts therefore have no opinion on this part of the complaint.

Forum: Opposition silenced

Forum for Democracy calls the proposed sanctions “another step to silence the opposition.” According to the party, it is “absurd that the coalition is suspending opposition MPs with all sorts of tricky and bureaucratic rules and thus labeling unwanted votes as not having integrity.” Forum emphasizes that Baudet’s additional positions, including the annual accounts, are freely accessible through the Chamber of Commerce.

According to the House Rules, proposals from the Integrity Committee may not be debated, only put to the vote.

The code of conduct for MPs has been in effect since April 1 of last year. This came after criticism from the Council of Europe, which noted that there are few rules regarding the integrity of parliamentarians in our country.