The chair is part of the UvA's Amsterdam Centre on the Legal Professions (ACLP), which also has chairs in the the areas of the Legal Profession, Justice, and Legal Aid. In her research, Miranda de Meijer will focus on the position of the Public Prosecution Service within the constitutional state and, more broadly, against the backdrop of changing legislation and societal views. She is particularly interested in how the Public Prosecution Service, the Minister of Security and Justice and regional administrations work together, but will also be looking at public governance in its organisational context, ethical dilemmas and integrity.

Additionally, De Meijer will be investigating different forms of subversive criminality, which presents great dangers to Dutch society due to the way it links legitimate business with the underworld. De Meijer's research will consider questions such as to what extent current judicial and other instruments are sufficient to effectively combat subversive criminality in its diverse forms, partly in view of collaborative law enforcement and criminal justice efforts and alternative forms of intervention.

Integrity in the legal professions

De Meijer's teaching focus will be on the position of and collaboration between the three judicial professions – of judge, public prosecutor and barrister. In one of her lectures, for example, she will be teaming up with Professor of Legal Professions Britta Böhler to juxtapose defence lawyers and public prosecutors, centring on the question of whether their different positions within a state under the rule of law also lead to the two groups adopting different views vis-à-vis one another’s professional integrity.

Collaboration with the Public Prosecution Service

The establishment of this chair lays the foundation for a collaboration between the judicial practice of the Public Prosecution Service and the scholarly practice of the UvA. The aim of this partnership will be to exchange knowledge and expertise by means of education and research and to issue (joint) publications on relevant issues.

About De Meijer

De Meijer has been attorney general at the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague since 2008, specialising in cases for the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, megacases and complex legal matters. From 2004 until 2008 she worked as a public prosecutor in Rotterdam, and prior to that as a lawyer with the firms of Salomons van der Valk Advocaten in The Hague and Spong Advocaten in Amsterdam. In 2004 she obtained her PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam with a thesis on the Public Prosecution Service in civil-law cases (Het Openbaar Ministerie in civiele zaken). De Meijer also holds a number of board and advisory appointments. She chairs the scientific committee of the Dutch Association for the Judiciary and is a member of the board of the Dutch-Flemish Criminal Law Society (Nederlands-Vlaamse Vereniging voor Strafrecht) and of the advisory committee of the Research Council for the Judiciary (Onderzoek Raad voor de Rechtspraak). In addition, she is chair of the complaints committee of Bouman GGZ Rotterdam and is a member of the advisory committee on Births, Deaths and Marriages and Nationality (Commissie van Advies inzake Burgerlijke stand en Nationaliteit). De Meijer also teaches at the Police Academy of the Netherlands and at the SSR Training and Study Centre for the Judiciary, and regularly speaks at conferences and symposia in the Netherlands and abroad.