Since the beginning of this year, 321 conversations between prisoners and their lawyers have been recorded by the Department of Correctional Institutions (DJI). A mistake, the prison dome says, but lawyers are nonetheless concerned.

This is a national problem. The DJI does not rule out that interviews were also recorded in Limburg institutions.

Criminal conduct

At least once a week, detainees are allowed ten minutes of phone calls through the Telephone for Detainees system. Those calls are routinely recorded by DJI, according to a spokesman, to "prevent continued criminal activity in detention. Calls to a lawyer are an exception; those are filtered based on number recognition.

Hundreds of conversations

Due to an error in the system of Telephony for Justices, hundreds of calls have nevertheless been recorded since the beginning of this year. The error was discovered on September 16 at Schiphol prison. When listening to a recording, it turned out to be a lawyer's conversation.

The number recognition was apparently inadvertently bypassed when an inmate dialed thirteen instead of ten digits. "DJI and the Netherlands Bar Association were not aware that this possibility could establish a call," the DJI spokeswoman informed.

Not listened to

"These conversations were not overheard by DJI. In fact, there is logging instead of making, listening in on, recording and listening back to conversations. The conversations have also been removed from the system of Telephony for Justices," the DJI spokesman stressed. The Dutch Bar Association was informed immediately after the discovery.

Every time excuses

The Bar Association speaks of an "undesirable situation," but, like DJI, announces that the conversations were not overheard and have since been erased. The lawyers involved have been informed. Among them Maastricht criminal lawyer Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen. "Time after time it appears that the justice system cannot resist listening in on conversations between lawyers and their clients," he says.

Van Berge Henegouwen can do little with the reassurance that no conversations were overheard. "Every time there is another excuse and always it is a bit accidental. By now it is clear to me that the judiciary has little use for the professional secrecy of lawyers."

Very concerning

Attorney Raimon Maessen is also critical. "I find this very worrying. Each time these are incidents, but it is a recurring phenomenon in recent years where things keep going wrong in prisons. In my opinion, it is the highest priority to adequately address gaps in systems in institutions."

Careful and wise

Maessen calls confidential communication between client and lawyer a fundamental importance. "Especially at a time when suspects' rights are being eroded more and more." Colleague Serge Weening concurs. "We must be able to trust that we can speak freely with our clients. I always tell them, 'You can say what you want to say.' I'm a little more reserved about that now."

Weening is confident that DJI handled the problem "carefully and wisely. "But that does not take away from the fact that people may have heard things they should not have heard."