Chanel Brownbill
THE HAGUE--The conviction of former Member of Parliament (MP) Chanel Brownbill for tax evasion has been upheld by the High Court in The Hague on Tuesday, March 23, on the recommendation of the attorney general.
Brownbill was prosecuted for his failure to file income and turnover tax (TOT) from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2017. The case was investigated by police officers of the Anti-Corruption Task Force TBO.
On March 5, 2020, the Appeals Court found it proven that Brownbill had deliberately failed to declare income and TOT to the total amount of more than NAf. 890,000, and sentenced him to 18 months, 12 of which were suspended, on three years’ probation, and 240 hours of community service.
Brownbill launched a final appeal at the Supreme Court during which his lawyer Thijs Kelder pleaded with the highest court in the Dutch kingdom to nullify his client’s conviction. The lawyer complained, for instance, that the Court of Appeals had rejected several pleadings aimed at declaring the Prosecutor’s Office’s case against Brownbill inadmissible on incorrect grounds.
One of those arguments was that the suspect was entitled to a successful appeal to the so-called voluntary disclosure scheme (“inkeerregeling”), because he had voluntarily submitted tax returns. Brownbill’s lawyer also stated that the imposed punishment was “incomprehensible.”
In its ruling, the High Court stated that it had assessed the complaints about the Joint Court’s ruling, but the outcome was that these complaints could not lead to the ruling being quashed.
The Supreme Court said it did not have to motivate why it had arrived at this conclusion. “When assessing these complaints, it is not necessary to answer questions that are important for the unity or development of the law,” the court stated in referring to Article 81, Sub 1, of the Judicial Organisation Act.
According to Attorney General Ebby Hofstee, all the cassation complaints were unsuccessful. With regard to the appeal to the voluntary disclosure scheme, the Court of Appeals established that Brownbill had not submitted tax returns until sometime after a house search had been conducted, and he was arrested and detained as a suspect in the “Emerald” investigation into wrongdoings with invoices for construction work performed at Port St. Maarten.
Therefore, Brownbill knew then that the tax officials were aware that he had wrongly failed to file returns. For that reason, he did not have a successful appeal to the voluntary disclosure scheme, the Joint Court stated in its ruling of March 2020. The Attorney General found this judgment legally correct and sufficiently motivated.
In imposing a partly unconditional prison sentence, the Joint Court particularly held it against Brownbill that he had an exemplary role in society to play, and as an MP had received a substantial income from the treasury.
However, he had failed to give any insight into his reproachable actions or shown any convincing regret. According to the Appeals Court, the seriousness of the criminal offences meant that a lighter sentence than a partly unconditional imprisonment, and the maximum number of hours in community service would not be suitable.
