With its judgment of May 1, 2017, the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights has decided that the government discriminates against Roma, Sinti and travellers. The intervention of Public Interest Litigation Project (PILP) of the Netherlands Committee of Jurists for Human Rights played a significant role in bringing the case.

The case concerned a complaint from a group of travellers about the guidelines the government provided to municipalities in 2006. Because of the Dutch government's decentralization of housing policy, municipalities are in fact responsible for ensuring the right for travellers to reside in caravans.

To help with this, the government created a guide, "Working on caravan locations" intended to give municipalities assistance in developing their local caravan residency policies.

In the guidelines, five policy options are provided, under which is a "zero" option. This option is also known as an "extinction policy" because it is intended to make caravan residency disappear.

'Extinction policy' is discriminatory

The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights already decided in 2014 that the extinction policy is discriminatory. With its current judgment, the Institute clarifies that the government has made a prohibited distinction by including the "zero" option in its guide.

The institute concluded, in agreement with PILP's argument, that

"by opting to include the 'zero' option as a policy option, the defendant not only has advanced discriminatory caravan residency policy by municipalities, but also legitimized it."

The PILP is content with the judgment. The government cannot disregard caravan residency culture, and should do more to protect caravan residents and their culture.

We hope that the government will play a more positive role in the protection of this culture and will provide municipalities with guidelines to give caravan residency a place within their housing policies.

If the government does not do this, PILP will consider further legal action.