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Shortly after Aruba’s ‘status aparte’ within the Kingdom became a reality, the University of Aruba (UA) opened its gates in September 1988. At that time, the brand new university consisted of only one faculty: the Faculty of Law. In September 2006, the three-year bachelor’s degree in Aruban law was introduced; in the 2008-2009 academic year, the implementation of the master’s degree in Aruban law followed. The purpose of this contribution is to provide an insight into the curriculum of Aruban Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Aruba. It becomes clear that despite the small scale of the faculty, the full area of criminal and criminal procedure law is covered and that students can start working in legal practice as a fully-fledged master of law after completing their studies. The faculty plays an important role in Aruban society and meets the need for new lawyers, (local) judges, legislative lawyers and other lawyers on the island.

Artificial Intelligence and algorithms are increasingly able to replace human workers in cognitively sophisticated tasks, including ones related to justice. Many governments and international organizations are discussing policies related to the application of algorithmic judges in courts. In this paper, we investigate the public perceptions of algorithmic judges. Across two experiments (N = 1,822), and an internal meta-analysis (N = 3,039), our results show that even though court users acknowledge several advantages of algorithms (i.e., cost and speed), they trust human judges more and have greater intentions to go to the court when a human (vs. an algorithmic) judge adjudicates. Additionally, we demonstrate that the extent that individuals trust algorithmic and human judges depends on the nature of the case: trust for algorithmic judges is especially low when legal cases involve emotional complexities (vs. technically complex or uncomplicated cases).

In this article we examine the Dutch emergency legislation for local democracy. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, the Temporary Act for digital meetings for local/regional government tiers was enacted. The legislature introduced a system of digital debate and decision-making for municipal and provincial councils, the democratically elected assemblies at the local and regional levels. At the same time the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations set up an evaluation committee to monitor and evaluate the working of the local and provincial governments with this temporary legislation. This article discusses the content and application of the temporary provisions for deliberation and decision-making on a digital platform. The purpose of the legislation is to create possibilities for the elected representatives to continue their work during the lockdown. We examine the design and structure of the legislation and disclose the evaluation results so far. The arrangements aim for secure, transparent and reliable democratic practices. Early evidence pertaining to the effects of the Act show that it works effectively only up to a certain level. We critically discuss the sunset clause in the Act and plead against function creep. Moreover, the expectations now and in the future from continuous digitalization of this part of the democratic process should be modest. On the basis of our analysis of the characteristics of the legislation and the effects on the political work of the representatives, we conclude that the current form of digitalization does not provide for the interaction between representatives and their constituencies and the communities at large.

Many countries adhere to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development creed that innovation is good for the economy. Experiments are often used to intentionally create space for innovation. Decisions allowing experiments result in temporary legal enclaves for a few, excluding many others. Therefore, they come with risks. The aim of this article is to provide a set of guidelines that help improve the legal resilience of experimentation policies, so they are better able to withstand legal attacks when they occur. To do so, we first arranged the existing diversity of legal experiments in a theoretical model. Special attention was paid to two archetypes of legal experiments: statutory experiments and regulatory sandboxes. Second, we analyzed the impact of both types of experiments on four core legal principles: legality, certainty, equality, and public accountability. From this assessment, we eventually formulated a set of guidelines to secure or improve legal resilience.

‘We zijn toe aan een volgende fase.’ Aldus luidde de boodschap van de minister van Veiligheid en Justitie in een visiedocument voor het digitaal werken in de strafrechtsketen, in februari 2016 per brief aan de Tweede Kamer aangeboden. In die brief wordt met de volgende fase in ieder geval bedoeld dat voor de strafrechtspleging een digitaal ‘informatie-ecosysteem’ ontwikkeld wordt, waarin allerhande nieuw te ontwikkelen (sub)systemen hun plek hebben. [...]