Dutch border police can no longer check people based on their skin colour, a court in The Hague ruled on Tuesday, overturning a previous court ruling that allowed ethnic profiling.
The court found that people of colour are checked much more often by the police when entering the country. This constitutes unequal treatment, according to the court, which now prohibits taking skin colour into account when carrying out identity checks at borders.
In 2021, however, a Dutch court had ruled in favour of the border police, considering that skin colour could indeed be a criterion to be taken into account when selecting people for identity checks.
Amnesty International denounced the decision at the time, saying in particular that it “threw international human rights law out of the window.” Along with other NGOs, the organisation took legal action, claiming that the use of racial profiling was a form of discrimination prohibited by international law.
The Dutch police will now study Tuesday's decision and assess its impact on their work, a spokesman said.
