POLITICAL ANDCRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY The classical doctrine of ministerial responsibility rests on the assumption that there is a sufficiently hierarchical relationship between ministers and civil servants. Ministers must ha ve effective controlover their civil servants The classical doctrine of ministerial responsibility holds that the minister is the control of the minister. For the theoretical foundations of this model of bureaucracy one is often referred to Max Weber. The model rests on the assumption that there is a hierarchical structure of ministerial departments, and that the minister has sufficient powers as well as possibilities to ensure that his civ il servants do what the minister wants them to do, and provide the minister with all the relevant information. If these conditions are fulfilled, Parliament may have effective controlover the executive, via the minister The classical doctrine holds that m inisterial responsibility contains various elements Responsibility for acts of the King. Following article 42 of the Constitution, the King is inviolable, and the ministers are responsible. This is universally taken to mean that nothing the King ever says or does can entail political, crim inal or civil responsibility. 15 The King may not be 'exposed, i.e. his acts may in no way cause controversy and if so this should never touch the King personally. In practice, the Prime Minister is the minister who is most closely in touch with the King. Every week the King is consulted, the Prime minister supervises the writing of the King s texts, hardly any act of the King will escape ministerial control. In practice, however, there is a certain recognition of the privacy of the King s person, including a say in holiday destinations. I6 Responsibility for the ministers own acts. This is the most obvious part of ministerial responsibility. It is im portant to note that responsibility regards the office of minister, whereas political confidence(as relevant in the rule of confidence)regards his or her person. This means that parliament may express lack of confidence also on the occasion of a ministers private behaviour Responsibility with regard to acts of civil servants. This responsibility used to be self-evident, but in practice it is possibly the case that more or less autonomous acts of civil servants, and the restructuring of the civil service in order to meet modern organisational and political requirements and insights, have done much to undermine classical structures of political responsibility. The situation in the Netherands is probabl less dramatic than in the United Kingdom where a recent manual of constitutional law Although in the Memore van Toelichting(White Paper) on the approval of the Statute of the International Crminal Court a remarkable passage can be found in whih it s said that a. in the Dutch constitutional system, the King is not a political Head of State but a representative! Head of State, and b it follows from article 42 of the Constitution that the king cannot commit crim nal offences snce the Kings acts are fully covered by minsterial respons bility. Kamershkken 27 484 nr 3, p. 9. This must aslip of the pen, to put it mildly. Forcriticism of the view ofthe White Paper, see Kortmann 1999 Although thi may be poltically charged as was the case when Queen Beatrix left for Austria on holiday shortly after Haider's party won the elctions and the memberstates of the European Union were onsidering sanctions against AustriaPOLITICAL AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY 7 The classical doctrine of ministerial responsibility rests on the assumption that there is a sufficiently hierarchical relationship between ministers and civil servants. Ministers must have effective control over their civil servants. The classical doctrine of ministerial responsibility holds that the minister is politically responsible to parliament and that civil servants do their work entirely under the control of the minister. For the theoretical foundations of this model of bureaucracy one is often referred to Max Weber. The model rests on the assumption that there is a hierarchical structure of ministerial departments, and that the minister has sufficient powers as well as possibilities to ensure that his civil servants do what the minister wants them to do, and provide the minister with all the relevant information. If these conditions are fulfilled, Parliament may have effective control over the executive, via the minister. The classical doctrine holds that ministerial responsibility contains various elements: - Responsibility for acts of the King. Following article 42 of the Constitution, the King is inviolable, and the ministers are responsible. This is universally taken to mean that nothing the King ever says or does can entail political, criminal or civil responsibility.15 The King may not be `exposed', i.e. his acts may in no way cause controversy and if so this should never touch the King personally. In practice, the Prime Minister is the minister who is most closely in touch with the King. Every week the King is consulted, the Prime minister supervises the writing of the King's texts, hardly any act of the King will escape ministerial control. In practice, however, there is a certain recognition of the privacy of the King's person, including a say in holiday destinations.16 - Responsibility for the minister's own acts. This is the most obvious pa rt of ministerial responsibility. It is important to note that responsibility regards the office of minister, whereas political confidence (as relevant in the rule of confidence) regards his or her person. This means that parliament may express lack of confidence also on the occasion of a minister's private behaviour. - Responsibility with regard to acts of civil servants. This responsibility used to be self-evident, but in practice it is possibly the case that more or less autonomous acts of civil servants, and the restructuring of the civil service in order to meet modern organisational and political requirements and insights, have done much to undermine classical structures of political responsibility. The situation in the Netherlands is probably less dramatic than in the United Kingdom, where a recent manual of constitutional law 15. Although in the Memorie van Toelichting (White Paper) on the approval of the Statute of the International Criminal Court a remarkable passage can be found in which it is said that a. in the Dutch constitutional system, the King is not a `political' Head of State but a `representative' Head of State, and b. it follows from article 42 of the Constitution that the King cannot commit criminal offences since the King's acts are fully covered by ministerial responsibility. Kamerstukken 27 484 nr. 3, p. 9. This must be a slip of the pen, to put it mildly. For criticism of the view of the White Paper, see Kortmann 1999. 16. Although this may be politically charged as was the case when Queen Beatrix left for Austria on holiday shortly after Haider's party won the elections and the member states of the European Union were considering sanctions against Austria