Legal Services

Recently, in her Meindert Fennema lecture (in Dutch), lawyer Ellen Pasman pointed out an abomination. The state attorney, acting on behalf of the Dutch State, often litigates against citizens who are victims of state-run institutions. A prime example is the childcare benefits scandal, where the law firm Pels Rijcken – that has supplied state attorneys since 1969 – advised the tax authorities on the scandalous repayment process. In other words, the state attorney is litigating against citizens who have been harmed by policies that the state attorney himself had helped to implement. Let that sink in for a moment.

I see a similar abomination at TU Delft. Here too, the Legal Services department is being deployed against its own employees. A recent example is the threat to hold the Editor-in-Chief of Delta personally liable if an article exposing misconduct at the Innovation & Impact Centre was not removed from the website within two hours and 10 minutes. What?! Why doesn’t Legal Services stand by the Editor-in-Chief? Isn’t governance about supporting your people? Also, employees who find themselves in conflict with their supervisor must hire a lawyer at their own expense, while the supervisor receives free legal support from TU Delft’s in-house lawyers. In TU Delft’s hierarchical structure, it appears that a supervisor automatically has the upper hand in a conflict with a subordinate and thus receives legal backing from TU Delft.

A supervisor automatically has the upper hand in a conflict with a subordinate

I have personally experienced how TU Delft turns against its employees. A few years ago, my laptop was stolen from my office. I had purchased that laptop myself because the two models provided by TU Delft didn’t meet my needs. No problem, I thought, I’ll buy my own laptop, even though I use it for TU Delft related work 90% of the time. My laptop was stolen from my locked office. But everyone and his brother can access my office, and I have no control over that. It’s not unusual for the door to swing open while I’m working, with someone entering to count how much furniture there is in my office. This usually happens without knocking – people just walk in. After all, a farmer doesn’t knock before entering his pigsty.

The day after I reported my laptop as stolen, two people from Legal Services visited me. Their sole purpose was to inform me that TU Delft denied any liability and that the loss was my responsibility. If it had been a TU Delft-issued laptop, I would have received a replacement, but since it was my own property, it was my problem. “You allow other people to access my office, so isn’t it your responsibility if one of them steals my laptop?” Apparently not. The electronic lock on my door records everyone who enters my office. The time of the theft was fairly well-determined, so I requested a record of who had accessed my office during that period. That request was denied for ‘privacy reasons’.

Rather than compensate me for my stolen laptop, TU Delft spared no expense or effort to dodge liability. Cheerfully, I went back to work the next day. What a fantastic employer!