The purpose of this study is to investigate how fair or unfair defendants in the cantonal court experience their treatment during the process and which factors influence that experience. Very little research is done in this area. In a survey defendants were asked to evaluate how they were treated during the process. The results show that defendants who were convicted have a more negative judgement about fairness than defendants who weren’t convicted. Significant predictors of judgement about fair treatment are: the impression that the judge was listening, the overall impression of the way the case was treated by the court and the impression that the judge was patient.

This article deals with the topic of the life imprisonment in the Netherlands. The court Noord-Nederland judged that life imprisonment in the Netherlands doesn’t meet the criteria of the ECtHR, especially the ‘prospect of release of life prisoners. In this article I place the court’s decision in a context of national law and case-law (national, and international). In my opinion, there is still a prospect of release, because of the many independent judicial bodies and procedures that are involved to the decision to grant (or not) a pardon and the new developments in the penitentiary law.