An independent panel has ruled that Wilders’ appeal proceedings had not been fairly conducted. On Friday, a special court commission ordered that the judges be replaced. The hearing took place in a court room near Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, where the trial is located for security reasons.
The special commission accepted Wilders’ complaint about the fairness of his trial. “The statement [by the judges] on the principle of equality is so brief and incomprehensible that the fear of bias on this issue is objectively justified,” the special court objection commission ruled.
In a tweet, Wilders called the ruling “tremendous” after his lawyer argued on Thursday that the original judges showed clear bias by not responding to Wilders’ reasonable requests.
The three biased judges had rejected Wilders’ plea to call more witnesses and deepen investigations in his appeal case. Neither did the judges sufficiently reason their frivolous rejections, the Associated Press reported.
The court in The Hague had refused investigate the prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute leftist D66 leader Alexander Pechtold for what Wilders says were similar to comments Wilders was convicted for.
In December 2016, Wilders was found guilty in a so-called “hate speech trial” for allegedly insulting Moroccans as a group and inciting discrimination.
In February this year, Pechtold similarly singled out Russians as a group and insulted them. “I have yet to meet the first Russian who corrects his mistakes himself,” Pechtold sneered. But the public prosecutor found that this comment was incomparable to Wilders’ comments about Moroccans.
Wilders had asked his supporters whether they wanted “more or fewer” Moroccans, with the attendees cheering “fewer, fewer” as their answer. “Good, we’re going to arrange that,” Wilders concluded.
Pechtold insulted Russians earlier this year after the former foreign minister Halbe Zijlstra had been caught lying about a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Seven people filed a complaint against Pechtold because of his disparaging comment, but the public prosecutor said the politician had not insulted an entire group of people and should not be prosecuted.
In response to the latest news, Wilders tweeted: “We won this battle, but not yet the war. We will never give up but always go on and keep fighting, every day again, for the most important to all of us: Freedom of expression.”
Deze slag hebben we gewonnen.
Maar de oorlog nog niet.
We zullen nooit opgeven maar altijd doorgaan en blijven strijden, iedere dag opnieuw, voor het allerbelangrijkste van ons allemaal:
De vrijheid van meningsuiting.
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) May 18, 2018
Three new judges will have to be appointed which will cause a temporarily delay, since they have to be granted enough time to become familiar with the case.
On Thursday Wilders said that he did not think Pechtold should be prosecuted, but that the same should apply to himself. “I think I should not be here,” Wilders responded.