Covenant Public Prosecution Service
- 2 February 2024
- 1 min
- Open government act
Employees of the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie, OM) may face verbal and physical threats because of their work. In the event of such a foreseeable threat, the OM employee may shield the visiting address of their company or legal entity (with the exception of a bv or a nv) in the Business Register. A condition for this is that the OM has agreed on shielding criteria with KVK. These agreements have been set out by the OM in a covenant.
When are you eligible?
You are eligible if:
- You are a registered employee of the Public Prosecution Service.
- You submit a declaration drawn up by or on behalf of the Board of Procurators General, represented by the Security Authority (BVA) OM. This shows that, as a (former) employee of the OM, you face a probable threat because of your specific activities, now or in the past.
You can request to shield your visiting address with this form (in Dutch).
Research
A review of several Dutch news reports and studies shows that employees of the Public Prosecution Service face threats because of their positions.
Politici, medewerkers van het OM en journalisten zijn regelmatig doelwit van bedreiging, intimidatie en stalken (Adams et al., 2009; Chamberlain & Miller, 2009; Gass et al., 2009; Narud & Dahl, 2015).
Bedreigingen via de telefoon, e-mail, post of sociale media zijn veel voorkomend. Minder vaak is er sprake van een bedreiging waarbij de dader fysiek aanwezig is (Every-Palmer et al., 2015; Adams et al., 2009).