Powers
The police have powers "ordinary" people don't have. E.g. an officer can stop or arrest people, or look in a shopping bag for lifted items, or (on authorization of the assistant prosecutor) search a home for arms. The police also have the power to use force. This power is often called the "monopoly on force". The police is one of the few organisations in the Netherlands that are allowed to use force, the use of which is bound by many rules and preconditions.
The power to stop someone is often confused with the power to arrest someone. The power to stop someone is the power of the police to make someone stand still, so that the police can ask for his name and address. (A lot of people say they have been arrested when they were really only fined or just stopped.)
The power to stop someone is the power that enables the arrest of someone. However, this power is not only granted to the police. The Code of Criminal Procedure, article 53, sub 1, reads:
In case of discovery in the act everyone is authorized to stop the suspect.
The term "in the act" meaning "when it just happened".
Stopping someone means holding the suspect while waiting for the arrival of the police. When someone is stopped, he is always brought to a police station for questioning.
The investigative powers of the police are for example described in the Police Law, the Arms and Munitions Law, the Opium Law, the Road Traffic Law 1994, the Entry Law and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
These powers are bound by very strict rules. Some of these powers may be applied by an officer himself, like the examples before. Other police powers, like wiretapping, observation or searching premises, can only be used after permission is granted by the examining judge.
Read more about this topic: Law Enforcement In The Netherlands
Famous quotes containing the word powers:
“Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Everyone confesses in the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“Religion differs from magic in that it is not concerned with control or manipulation of the powers confronted. Rather it means submission to, trust in, and adoration of, what is apprehended as the divine nature of ultimate reality.”
—Joachim Wach (1898–1955)