Director of Constitutional Affairs and Legislation (BZK)
The legal cathedral of proportionality
SUMMARY
De directeur Constitutionele Zaken en Wetgeving, de hoeder van de rechtsstaat en van onze grondrechten, legt zeer eloquent uit hoe een juridische proportionaliteitstoets in elkaar steekt. Wordt zij 5 keer bevraagd hoe die proportionaliteitsafweging er dan exact uitziet dan is het antwoord steeds van de orde: "Het is geen wiskunde" en aarzelend "Ik blijf bij mijn eerdere antwoord".
Zij ziet echter niet en weet kennelijk niet dat met een kleine rekensom van het type dat het ministerie van VWS al decennia wekelijks maakt en dat het Ministerie van EZK in maart 2020 op de achterkant van een sigarendoosje maakte t.b.v. de "intelligente lockdown"
- the gain of a curfew with some optimism 400 healthy life years (qalys) could be,
- but that's it loss minimum approx. 250.000 healthy years of life.
So 600 times as much loss as profit...
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The comparison with Halsema and Grapperhaus
While the interrogations of Halsema and Grapperhaus exposed the psychological paralysis and moral capitulation of public administration respectively, the interrogation of Hanneke Schipper-Spanninga on July 3, 2026 brought a completely different discipline into the spotlight: the technocratic distance of the top lawyer. As Director of Constitutional Affairs and Legislation at the Ministry of the Interior (BZK) - now State Councilor at the Council of State - she and her department have been the absolute legal architect of the crisis policy. She is a highly educated, fluent lawyer who to this day is fully convinced that the drastic Corona measures, which set aside 7 fundamental rights, could be perfectly substantiated legally.
Her performance during the interrogation was a masterclass in erecting a legalistic smokescreen, intended to conceal the fact that in reality no material weighing of interests and fundamental rights has yet begun. No malicious intent, no weak spine, no emotional Rule of Rescue victim — but the perfect civil servant-lawyer of a system that has convinced itself that legal-procedural perfection can replace moral and factual/material consideration.
Before we delve into depth, let's first consider how fundamental rights and proportionality have been thought and discussed so far.
The disastrous apparent contradictions in the Corona debate
In the critical public discussion about the fundamental rights clash, the camps were diametrically opposed to each other — but on the wrong fault lines.
The early Corona critics: too much emotion and too little rationality
Influencers en filosofen als Marianne Zwagerman, Damiaan Denys en Marli Huijer zochten de verklaring in de verabsolutering van het "recht op leven". Zij kwamen dicht bij de werkelijke oorzaak, maar schoten tekort in de objectieve ethische onderbouwing, die een grens aan de door hen als zo schrijnend ervaren disproportionaliteit van het beleid had kunnen stellen.
Alleen Prof. Ira Helsloot en dr. Eline van den Broek hebben al in april 2020 gewezen op het al decennia bestaande framework van kosten/baten analyses op basis van qaly's'; en zij toonden met enkele simpele rekensommen toen al aan dat de maatregelen volstrekt disproportioneel waren. Juist de Nederlandse gezondheidseconomen, die beter hadden moeten weten, distantieerden zich echter van dergelijke berekeningen in crisistijd, terwijl dit soort berekeningen juist in crisistijden van eminent belang zijn. Van Ira Helsloot en Eline van den Broek werd nauwelijks nog in het publieke debat vernomen….; ze werden "gecanceld".
The scientific criticism: 100% justified, but missing the point
Critics such as Maurice de Hond focused on the mistakes of (the RIVM models) by Jaap van Dissel & Jacco Wallinga and the OMT. The failing advisors are the explanation for a complete system implosion. But with better epidemiologists or modelers you would not have achieved a serious substantive proportionality test.
If the completely justified scientific criticism had been taken to heart, this could certainly have led to the nuance of some measures and even to the prevention of a serious number of premature deaths; but the medical and model unscientific nature only made a relatively small contribution to the disproportionality of the policy. Even if the 1.5 meter measures, outdoor air measures and the Omikron lockdown would have been completely abolished.
The regular critics: the 3 W's versus Rutte/De Jonge: theater in front of the stands
The regular discussion (still strictly confidential and secret in the Catshuis Council and in the Cabinet; and now relatively public as a result of the Parliamentary inquiry) is also disastrous.
Het debat tussen de "twijfelaars", zoals Halsema, Grapperhaus en de 3 W's (Wopke Hoekstra, Wouter Koolmees en Eric Wiebes, versus het duo Rutte/De Jonge is nu een dramatisch en soms sensationeel theater. Maar ook dat leidt helaas af van de werkelijke systeemfout.
Waar de drie economische zwaargewichten van het kabinet in het Catshuis weliswaar de enorme financiële, maatschappelijke en zelfs medisch ravage als gevolg van uitgestelde zorg overzagen en daarom intern stevig sputterden, capituleerden ook zij uiteindelijk roemloos voor de medisch-politieke druk van Rutte/De Jonge c.q. voor de chantage die uitging van de "wetenschappelijk onderbouwde" OMT-adviezen. Net als Grapperhaus en Halsema lieten zij uiteindelijk hun kritische vermogen en terechte "feeling voor proportionaliteit" gijzelen door de angst en de doctrine van de overvolle IC's en het mantra "niemand mag aan Corona doodgaan". Zij bleven hangen in subjectieve morele oordelen en twijfels, terwijl Rutte en De Jonge, niet gehinderd door al te veel innerlijke twijfel, maar gesterkt door constitutionele juridische waterdicht lijkende proportionaliteitstoetsen, doordrukten.
Zwagerman voelde met haar omstreden "dor hout"-column uit 2020 intuïtief feilloos aan waar de pijn zat: je kapt niet het hele bos om een paar bijna dode bomen nog even overeind te houden. Het platleggen van een complete samenleving om de levens van een relatief kleine kwetsbare, terminale groep met enkele maanden te verlengen, is disproportioneel. Deze constatering sluit naadloos aan op het concept van de Rule of Rescue versus het utilitarisme, zoals dat door Orr & Wolff in 2014 is beschreven en waar we later in deze beschouwing nog uitgebreider op in zullen gaan.
But because this criticism was formulated morally and emotionally - exactly the same shortcoming as the doubting ministers it criticized - the BZK legal top group was able to easily and successfully counter it in court with abstract legal constructions. A feeling, no matter how pure, never wins over a legal smokescreen. You need numbers for that. And no one had that — not De Hond, not Zwagerman, not the 3 W's, and certainly not Rutte and De Jonge.
This put both the regular actors (3 W's vs. Rutte/De Jonge) and most of the early critics (Helsloot, De Hond, Zwagerman) in their place: everyone looked for the fault in one element, none of them saw, and to this day seem to see, that the entire assessment framework was missing. And that that was the crux of the disproportionate policy.
The cathedral of the mechanical-legal assessment framework: the appearance of objectivity
During her interrogation, Schipper-Spanninga explained in a crystal clear lecture the classic three-part legal test that is necessary to restrict fundamental rights:
- Need — the government has an active duty to protect the fundamental right to life (Article 2 ECHR), with Article 8 ECHR (public health) forming the basis. This requires epidemiological data on the severity of the threat.
- Eligibility (subsidiarity) — is the measure effective in achieving the goal?
- Proportionality — is the impact of the measure proportionate to the intended objective?
It sounds solid. But then the crucial escape clause follows up to 5 times: it is "geen wiskundige optelsom"; but we only hear that putting into perspective during the interrogation for the very first time since 2020….
The European legal framework, applied by judges, dictates that in the event of a new threat (such as a pandemic), the precautionary principle quickly takes on very heavy weight. In her view, the need for strict measures resulted directly from the acute medical threat as formulated by the OMT: as soon as the R-value increased, the severity increased, and the need for intervention logically increased. Even if the ICUs were far from full.
This is pure ETHICS: een plichtsgetrouwe systeemdwang die blind is voor de consequenties van de "moreel gedragen" keuzes. Er werd weliswaar input verzameld bij de VNG, wethouders, vakbonden en vak-ministeries over de maatschappelijke impact; maar een objectieve en liefst cijfermatige weging daarvan t.o.v. de behaalde voordelen, bleef uit.
"Het is geen wiskunde" and "De politiek moet uiteindelijk de knoop doorhakken", says Schipper-Spanninga. With those two sentences from the top lawyer, the cathedral of the thorough rule of law proportionality test collapsed into a vague, subjective and therefore arbitrary political decision.
She apologizes a little for not being there at the start of the pandemic due to (private) circumstances; but her department was hardly involved in the haste.
The revelation: the student house experiment and the malfunctioning machine
Het verhoor leverde ondanks deze deceptie toch één wezenlijke nouveauté op. Schipper-Spanninga onthulde dat het kabinet al in september 2020 concreet overwoog om een lokale avondklok in te voeren, specifiek gericht op studentenhuizen en jongeren, omdat daar de basisregels "ernstig werden overtreden". Dit plan strandde destijds op principiële, grondwettelijke bezwaren: het was namelijk een "handhavingsprobleem". And constitutional principles could not be set aside for this. Very well spoken by this guardian of the constitution!
Maar "Waarom ging de landelijke avondklok in januari 2021 dan wel door?" is de logische vervolgvraag. Internationale papers toonden inmiddels een daling van 8 tot 13% in besmettingscijfers aan door een avondklok. De opkomst van de 'Britse variant' met een angstaanjagend hoge R-waarde gooide alle eerdere berekeningen overhoop. Het 96e OMT advice was, according to Schipper-Spanninga, the legal trigger that dictated severity and therefore proportionality.
And at that exact moment, her hitherto eloquent speech faltered. After they introduced the curfew based on that 96e had firmly defended the advice, after repeated questions about why it was proportionate, because the committee wanted to understand it, there was a sudden hiccup in the argument: "Daar wil ik het bij laten." It was a remarkable, abrupt silence in an otherwise flawless flow of words. The top lawyer was clearly hiding something here; the legal machine came to a standstill where political pressure and the legal construction collided. Or did she now realize that the substantiation of proportionality was based on quicksand?
The constitutional emergency measure: from turbo emergency appeal to 3G
The vagueness only increased when the committee asked about the five consecutive extensions of the curfew. According to Schipper-Spanninga, the duration of a measure does not directly determine its proportionality at the time of extension — a legally logical quibble. Only as a measure "ongelimiteerd" according to her, it would matter. So the duration of the measures does matter, right? She did admit that there was "een alarmbel" went off in successive overtime periods. And she emphasized that fundamental rights were always in the minds of the ministers. And that everyone was aware of the severity of the measures.
When the judge in the Viruswaarheid case suddenly annulled the curfew because the emergency law (Wbbbg) had been wrongly used, it was a total surprise for the BZK: the legal cathedral collapsed due to a Wappie club.
Wat volgde was een ongekend schouwspel: met een "turbo-spoedappèl" binnen een paar uur werd de uitspraak van de rechtbank geschorst tot er een uitspraak zou komen van het gerechtshof; zo kon de maatregel toch nog diezelfde nacht ingaan. Schipper-Spanninga moest toegeven dat een dergelijke snelheid in de Nederlandse rechtsgeschiedenis nagenoeg uniek is. Binnen een paar dagen werd er voor de zekerheid een haastige spoedwet door de Kamers gejaagd.
According to her, the fact that the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal subsequently legally justified the old situation did not alter the fact that the transition to a formal law was only a "technische grondslag" concerned. After all, in her view, proportionality had never changed, while that was exactly the reason why the curfew initially failed in the court of first instance. The factual/material proportionality was not tested on appeal and at the Supreme Court; the abstract legal structure with the legalistic proportionality assessment was fine by the higher judges. Fortunately, the legal cathedral had been restored to its former glory.
Based on exactly the same legalistic logic, she was a warm supporter of the later 3G policy: after all, it was an instrument with which "de maatschappij weer open kon", ongeacht de discriminerende uitsluiting die het met zich meebracht. "Zo hadden ze er op haar afdeling nooit naar gekeken".
After all, the CTB was only for non-essential services and was a perfect means to end other fundamental rights restrictions.
The CTB would only be disproportionate if it were not complied with. But there were no signs of that. So it was a proportionate measure. Strange reasoning...
But. A little later she corrects herself: the impracticability belongs to the suitability tests, not to the proportionality test.
De uitbreiding van het CTB naar de werkvloer vond ze dan weer wel "kwetsbaar", omdat werknemers nou eenmaal afhankelijk zijn van de werkgever. Dus dan kan er sprake zijn van vaccinatiedwang. Het is uiteindelijk wel ingevoerd….
There was official negative advice about 2G. Vaccination can only be made mandatory under special circumstances. There were hesitations regarding those circumstances. As long as you could still expand 3G, 2G is not OK. That does sound logical.
Maar. Het voorstel voor 2G is uiteindelijk onder politieke druk toch het parlement ingeduwd en daar uiteindelijk alsnog gestrand. Ze wordt dan streng bevraagd over haar werkethiek. "Je kunt als ambtenaar natuurlijk wegens gewetensbezwaren weigeren. Maar we hebben "gewoon" die wetsvoorstellen voorbereid". Ze wordt ook hier stevig over ondervraagd. En ook hier komt plots komt weer die zin "Ik heb niets toe te voegen aan wat ik net zei." Huh?
Finally, she can evaluate. There has rarely been so much attention to fundamental rights as during the pandemic, she says. It all went very well.
The only 2 points that could be improved are:
- The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations was not involved enough in the safety consultation. As a result, things often only had to be corrected later in the process.
- In retrospect, the nursing home visiting ban was too drastic. She thinks they should raise the alarm about this sooner. It should not have been left up to nursing homes themselves whether an exception for visitors was granted. That should have been arranged centrally.
But, again, everything else had gone almost perfectly.
The unmasking: proportionality dissected in Qaly's
De eindeloze woordenbrij van de ambtelijke topjurist kan niet verhullen dat er in werkelijkheid sprake was van een totale afwezigheid van een feitelijke/materiële proportionaliteitstoets. Schipper-Spanninga verschuilde zich achter de stelling dat proportionaliteit "geen wiskunde is" en dat de politiek de weging moest verrichten. Maar dat is een intellectuele weigering om de werkelijkheid onder ogen te zien.
Als we de abstracte mist van BZK weghalen en het alom geaccepteerde model van VWS toepassen — dat nota bene door het ministerie van EZK al in maart 2020 was doorgerekend voor de toenmalige "intelligente lockdown" — wordt de totale disproportionaliteit van de avondklok pijnlijk helder. De proportionaliteit laat zich namelijk wél degelijk cijfermatig benaderen via de methodiek van de Qaly (quality adjusted life years — the number of years left to live in perfect health).
The Benefits:
Wat hier volgt is een sterk vereenvoudigde, illustratieve Qaly-kosten/batenanalyse van de avondklokmaatregel (3 maanden). Dit is geen volledige maatschappelijke kosten-batenanalyse (MKBA) maar dient ter illustratie van de orde van grootte van de kosten en de baten. Belangrijke beperkingen zijn: geen precieze causaliteit (effect van de avondklok los van andere maatregelen is moeilijk te bepalen), subjectieve aanname over kwaliteit van leven, geen volledige verwerking van langetermijneffecten (zoals uitgestelde zorg of economische opportunity costs), en gevoeligheid voor variaties in de inputparameters. Ondanks deze beperkingen geeft een dergelijke berekening een aanzienlijk betere en vooral intersubjectieve grondslag t.a.v. proportionaliteit dan een obscure "politieke afweging". Het geeft een harde indicatie van de orde van grootte van de verhouding tussen de kosten en baten in dit specifieke geval. Het is niet voor niets dat deze methode ook altijd gebruikt wordt door het Ministerie van VWS bij de introductie van nieuwe geneesmiddelen of therapieën.
Suppose that the curfew directly saved the lives of approximately 2,000 vulnerable people, and that they lived an average of 3 months longer as a result of this measure (the average age of death of a Corona patient was approximately 84 years, which is almost equal to normal life expectancy). Given their high degree of comorbidity, their remaining quality of life must be corrected by a factor of approximately 0.80 (in other publications a much less conservative factor of 0.6 was even mentioned, e.g. the MKBA of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of March 2020). Then the Benefits can be calculated, optimistically, as follows:
of one = 2000 people × 0.25 years × 0.8 = 400 qaly's won.
The Costs:
On the other hand, there is the impact on the rest of society. About 10 million healthy citizens (not everyone was really bothered by it…) During the same 3 months, they experienced a significant restriction of their freedom and enjoyment of life, including demonstrable long-term economic damage that leads to lower life expectancy, psychological damage, depression and suicidality. If we conservatively assume that this resulted in a loss of only 10% of their overall quality of life during the curfew, then:
Cost = 10,000,000 people × 0.25 years × 0.1 = 250.000 qaly's lost
One can tweak the variables in this equation all one wants, but the outcome remains undeniably destructive. Even in an extremely favorable scenario, in which the curfew had saved ten times as many lives (which is impossible, because the excess mortality was nowhere near 20,000) and the quality of life of the population had only decreased by 1%, the balance sheet (benefits = 4,000 Qalys, costs = 25,000 Qalys) remains deeply in the red. This illustrates that the outcome is not very sensitive to reasonable variations in the most important assumptions. Anyone with a portion of common sense would come to the conclusion after reading such a calculation that a curfew is completely disproportionate.
The foreseen disaster: Orr & Wolff (2014)
En hier wordt de tragiek pas echt schrijnend. Want deze beleidsfout was niet onvoorzienbaar. Niet alleen de WHO publiceerde in al haar uitingen dat een lockdown altijd veel grotere nadelen heeft dan voordelen; het kan alleen nuttig zijn gedurende extreem korte tijd om te "hergroeperen", stelde de WHO. Ook de medisch-ethici Orr & Wolff beschreven al in 2014 — zeven jaar vóór de avondklok — hoe overheden in crisissituaties systematisch vervallen in Rule of Rescue gedrag: een zichzelf versterkend proces waarin het voorzorgsbeginsel alle andere afwegingskaders verdringt. En daardoor "forsaking potential large gains in health in order to save a small number of lives," resulting in "very significant QALY loss"
They predicted exactly the mechanism that Schipper-Spanninga would embody with such eloquence: a legal framework that gives the appearance of care, but in practice amounts to "OMT roept noodzaak → politics makes a decision → BZK timmert het juridisch dicht".
The blueprint was there. The warning was done. And yet it happened.
Conclusion: the machine is still running
The tragedy of Hanneke Schipper-Spanninga is not that she was a malicious actor. She is the perfect civil servant-lawyer of a system that has convinced itself that procedural care can replace moral and factual consideration. Without hard figures, a conscience or a rule of law compass appears to have absolutely no chance in a crisis against the moral blackmail of overflowing ICU beds.
By reducing the proportionality test to an apparently watertight legal construction, but provided with disclaimers "geen wiskunde", "de politiek moet de knoop doorhakken", it provided the ultimate legal lubricant for a policy that should have been immediately rejected based on any rational cost-benefit analysis.
And that is perhaps the most persistent form of tragedy: even now, years later, the machine continues to run. Without numbers. Without real weighing. But with unshakable confidence in their own legal construction. Just as Orr & Wolff had already put it on paper in 2014.
Zowel de reguliere wetenschappers, politici, ambtenaren, de enquête commissie als de vroege Corona-beleid critici, lijken dit mechanisme nog steeds niet te doorzien; laat staan dat ze onze overheid dwingen om eindelijk "gewoon" gebruik te maken van de "gezondheids-wiskunde" die al minimaal 40 jaar in Nederland en in bijna alle westerse landen usance is: bereken de kosten en baten altijd door m.b.v. qaly's, daly's of een andere intersubjectieve methode. Alleen zo kan een zinnig gesprek over "brede afwegingen" en "proportionaliteit" plaats vinden, zonder dat gemakkelijk gegrepen kan worden naar de chantage van de volle bedden of toegegeven moet worden aan de emotionele lokroep van de Rule of Rescue, waar door Orr & Wolff zo tegen gewaarschuwd is. Dat leidt namelijk bijna altijd tot moreel zeer verwerpelijke en maatschappelijk suboptimale uitkomsten.
Sources:
Orr & Wolff (2014), Reconciling cost-effectiveness with the rule of rescue: the institutional division of moral labour.
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (end of March 2020). Social cost/benefit analysis SCBA COVID-19 measures, version 1 and 2. (Prediction: approx. 100,000 life years gained vs. approx. 620,000 life years lost due to lockdown policy.) Min EZK Maatsch Cost Benefit Analysis 1 and 2.pdf
Background article/FAQ upon publication of EZK cost/benefit analysis and the Rule of Rescue: FAQ at BlckBx video.docx
Jan van der Zanden at blckbx:
“The tragedy of Hanneke Schipper-Spanninga is not that she was a malicious actor”
The problem is that she is, but you also fall for the inexplicable fairy tales that she consciously presents to you. And you then look for a story that she consciously tells you and then you arrive at the above sentence and she has you exactly where she wants you.
You have started to believe in the fairy tale.
Well, maybe you didn't read the article properly? What makes you believe that I believe in her fairy tale?
I am just detonating the complete fairy tale of Mrs. Mr. Skipper.
“Her performance during the interrogation was a masterclass in erecting a legalistic smokescreen, intended to conceal the fact that in reality no material weighing of interests and fundamental rights has yet begun. No malicious intent, no weak spine, no emotional Rule of Rescue victim - but the perfect civil servant-lawyer of a system that has convinced itself that legal-procedural perfection can replace moral and factual/material consideration.”
Eichman anyone?
Certainly. And Hannah Arendt.
Consciously or unconsciously, I don't know, but anyone who puts an upside-down pyramid on its side has still not solved a problem. It becomes ridiculous when the pyramid layer lying on his side passionately states that 'they' still don't see what the solution is.
This is all imagery, and not the best imagery, but don't feel the need to nitpick this entire article, so... imagery.
Two points then:
Point 1: deontology as you put it is not deontology but tyranny. Yes, I can say that too: saying that the decisions made at the time involved incorrect deontological thinking. Tyranny Jan, no deontology. Just look in your philosophical dictionary.
Punt 2:
You say the solution lies here:
'always calculate the costs and benefits using qalys, dalys or another intersubjective method. Only in this way can a meaningful conversation about “broad considerations” and “proportionality” take place, without easily resorting to the blackmail of full beds or having to give in to the emotional lure of the Rule of Rescue, which Orr & Wolff has warned against.'
But Jan, don't you know that qaly's daly's etc. are theoretical constructs that you can give all values in advance and thus arrive at any answer you want in advance?
Epidemilogy is not a crystal ball. Tragically, the deaths can only be counted accurately afterwards.
And that is why in situations like 2020 the following applies: 'What you do not want to happen to you, do not do to someone else either'
Willem,
Thank you for your sharp response.
I'll just go through the points.
1. There is no arguing about the choice of imagery. I like that my choice provokes interesting contradictory reactions. Apparently this choice has a stimulating effect on both supporters and opponents...
2. Deontology in particular has an air of tyranny in the philosophical discussion. After all, deontology prescribes that a virtue is always a virtue, regardless of its outcomes. That indeed smacks of tyranny. It is not without reason that there is an ongoing debate about consequentialism versus deontology.
Kant's absolutism says: “you should never lie, not even to a murderer who asks where your friend is hiding.” Well, that's a bit problematic, isn't it?
3. You are certainly correct that the Qaly/Daly does not offer 0.1% accuracy. However, the correction values (adjusted) have been tested by many field studies. That is why you can determine adjustments appreciated by the general public via tables with an accuracy of less than approximately 20%. That is why a Qaly calculation, despite its inaccuracy, does fairly accurately indicate the (mega!) disproportionality of, for example, a curfew or a lockdown. Exactly as the WHO has always written and as Marianne Zwagerman has so aptly put it in her dor-hout column.
This numerical substantiation goes further than the emotionally experienced disproportionality: it also indicates the order of magnitude of the disproportionality in a figure. Not 0.1% accurate, but accurate within the order of magnitude. And if there is a factor of 600 between costs and benefits {as I argue here with regard to the curfew}, then a sensible decision is up for grabs. During the “intelligent lockdown” that ratio was approximately 75. Also impossible to ignore!
If the cost/benefit ratio is close to 1 (e.g. between 0.7 and 1.3), this calculation will not help you make a hard choice; on the other hand, it gives a clear indication that whatever choice you make, it is in any case not disproportionate.
4. “What you do not want to happen to you” is a typical deontological postulate. That is absolutely a (Biblical) obligation on an individual level. But you cannot apply this at a macro level, because “you” and “you” are individuals and in a crisis there is “we” and “us”. And that is why this deontological commandment in a mass crisis will certainly also lead to collective moral injustice and suboptimal outcomes for society as a whole. Perhaps theologians once wrote something about this...
I hope you have read Orr & Wolff's article by now. I would like to hear your deontologically substantiated criticism of this….
A valuable 'intersubjective method' requires that views are also taken into account and taken into account in advance that challenge the initially obvious assumptions, positions and assumptions. Mutual understanding is also important for previously unwelcome views and opinions, especially if they appear to be quite broadly based. That didn't happen and it still doesn't happen. What seems obvious is not absolutely true, even if it seems absolutely true within the existing frameworks that we draw up for research, approach and policy.
If scientific expertise, with demonstrable stature, makes statements that are immediately labeled and dismissed as mis- and disinformation without room for explanation and debate, you may wonder whether this is ethically and morally responsible. How intersubjective are we being? And how purely scientific? And what do we actually 'calculate'?
To this day, certain views are pushed aside. The outcome of the corona survey regarding 'training for possibly. next pandemics' is therefore quite doubtful if we continue to look too one-sided. But there is always a chance... there will still be interrogations and perhaps in the course of this there will be more monkeys coming out of their sleeves, which will broaden the general picture. That would be a real lesson, wouldn't it?
I think so too. The interrogations still mainly reveal processes and actors. Sometimes very fascinating and even revealing. But it doesn't get to the heart of the problem.
The reports and sometimes reflections in the media will not lead to substantial improvements. This is mainly about “couldn't measures, including vaccination, have been taken sooner/faster/severe”?
And the Commission also seems to be mainly on that path.
That is why I fear that Schipper's shocking “it is not mathematics” and “the decision is up to politicians” statements will not lead to the Commission's finding that the policy was disproportionate, no matter how sharp the questions were.
Only Romy Quint had fundamental criticism of the policy principles. But yes, she was not at the controls... And she did not have an eloquent, well-crafted argument about the "moral blackmail" of the ICs over society as a whole. The Commission did ask further questions, it had an opportunity to substantiate this, but it did not have it ready. She also wanted to adhere to the rules with her Foundation to avoid any hassle.
Maurice de Hond will certainly discuss the content. I think so too, Mona Keijzer. The question is what remains of this in the final conclusions.