Access to evidence in the Netherlands1

Bart Krans and Niek Zondag

Chapter 6 in Access to Evidence in Civil Procedure, 2026, pp 118-152 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Traditionally, Dutch law has been reluctant towards establishing duties to disclose evidence. The judge has a competence, in all cases and at any stage of proceedings, to order disclosure of information. Since the judge's competence is discretionary, it does not provide parties with a genuine right of access to evidence. During the last decades, more substantial duties to disclose evidence have been developed under several doctrines in statutory or non-statutory law but first and foremost under a strengthened obligation to state reasons. More limited rights of access to evidence exist prior to commencement. The rules on access to evidence have been modernised by a reform that has been in force from 2025 onwards. The chapter also maps out how Dutch law on access to evidence has been influenced by EU Directives, how they have been implemented in the Netherlands and how they work in practice.

Keywords: Adverse inferences; Duty to give reasons; Ex officio orders; Reversed burden of proof; Sanctions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035336128
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035336135.00014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23430_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().