https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/...ng-king.html&eventName=Watching-article-click
Here's an interesting question for royalty geeks: what protection is there in your country for members of the local royal family that are insulted by the public? According to this article in the NY Times, insulting the King of the Netherlands will now be at par with insulting a member of the police force, as all are equal before the law.
The original idea by D66, the progressive liberal party which initiated this Bill, was to equal insults to the King with that of every Dutchman, as all are equal in the eyes of the law.
For other parties this was too simplistic. The King is not equal to you and me. He is the head of state, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can not expect the King to jump on his bike and go to the police station to lay down a complaint.
D66 sensed that their Bill would be torpedoed in the Chamber. So they changed: insulting the King is equal to insulting a judge, a mayor, a policeman, etc. In these cases it is the State which initiates prosecution and the penalties are higher.
This was not the aim of D66 but effectively they have given the King a better protection now. Prosecution on base of the article Crimen Laesae Maiestatis immediately causes uproar because it is felt as too heavy and undermining Freedoms. It is felt as using Thai practice in the Netherlands.
By filing the King under an article which is enforced dozens of times per year and which has a lot of jurisprudence ( = the history of verdicts and appeals of this law), this effectively means that a Public Prosecutor has a better instrument now to protect the High Office of the head of state.
