De meldingsplicht gereguleerd

Duty to notify is the legal obligation for citizens and businesses to have to report a proposed activity to the government in advance. All kinds of activities are subject to notification in the Netherlands: from building a dormer to organising a public event to making discharges to surface water. The instrument is widely used as a regulatory alternative to the permit obligation. This is because a duty to notify does not require waiting for government permission, allowing activities to be carried out more quickly. 

At least, that is the idea. The duty to notify also raises many questions. For instance, it is often unclear what happens if a dispute arises as to whether the notified activity is subject to a duty to notify at all. Can you then go to the administrative court? Can third parties interfere? Many (de)central governments regulate this in their own way, creating a huge diversity of duties to notify. Because the regulations with a duty to notify are so different, it is difficult to answer the above and more questions consistently. This results in a lot of legal uncertainty.

In my research, I show that despite the diversity in laws and regulations, the policy goals and implementation of reporting systems have many similarities. In seven case studies at local governments, I analysed regulations and policy documents and interviewed officials involved. This gave me a good picture of how notifications and disputes surrounding them are handled. I used this information to make recommendations for a uniform application of the duty to notify that leads to more legal certainty.

Dissertation: https://hdl.handle.net/11370/389c0920-1873-4ab6-a1e0-c0ea214f18d2