Final Victory in Dutch Scientology Case
Thursday December 22, 2005
After a 10 year legal battle, the Dutch Supreme Court has finally ruled against the Church of Scientology. Back in 1995, Scientologists sued XS4ALL, an internet service provider, and Karin Spaink for their publishing of internal Scientology material. The defendants argued their case on the basis of free speech and did so successfully.
XS4ALL reports:
In July this year, a few days before the Supreme Court was to rule upon the case, Scientology suddenly dropped its appeal. XS4ALL and Spaink formally objected this withdrawal: it is a known Scientology tactic to draw out its legal battles, and to suddenly drop them when it appears that they will lose the case. The Supreme Court accepts the cult’s withdrawal, thereby pre-empting the need for a legal evaluation of the case.
Attorney-general Verkade had advised a different strategy: he had wanted the Supreme Court to accept Scientology’s withdrawal while still judging the merits of the case. Earlier, Verkade had advised the Supreme Court to dismiss all Scientology’s claims against XS4ALL and Spaink. Apparently, the Supreme Court thinks that it needn’t add its own assessment to that of previous courts.
The Church of Scientology has often used copyright laws to try to keep secret many of the things they teach people — they apparently don’t want it known what it is they really believe and promote. Imagine, for a moment, if the Roman Catholic Church tried to copyright the Bible and forbid reproduction of passages which they deemed too embarrassing for the public to learn about.
There have been many fictional stories about the Vatican doing just that with “secret” scriptures, but here we have a real case of something very similar happening for real. Why hasn’t anyone written a story about this, given how much more realistic it is? Probably because the lawsuits which would result are also very realistic...
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