Last Updated 17/09/2025 published 17/09/2025 by Hans Smedema

Understanding the Hans Smedema Affair: A Guide to Key Concepts

Introduction: A Framework for Understanding a Complex Case

To deconstruct the complex tragedy alleged in the Hans Smedema affair, it is essential to apply four distinct analytical lenses from law and clinical psychology. This document will define the Rule of Law, State Capture, Betrayal Trauma, and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), using the real-world claims from the case as a powerful illustration of what these concepts mean in practice.

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1. The Rule of Law: A Foundational Principle Under Strain

1.1. What is the Rule of Law?

The Rule of Law is the principle that a nation is governed by laws, not by the arbitrary decisions of individual officials. When this principle fails, as an official Dutch parliamentary inquiry into the Toeslagenaffaire (Childcare Benefits Scandal) concluded, “fundamental rights were violated and the rule of law was dismissed.”

It means that everyone—citizens and the government alike—is subject to and accountable under the law. It guarantees fundamental principles like equal treatment, access to justice, and protection from the abuse of power, as alleged in the Smedema affair where state institutions purportedly worked to conceal crimes rather than prosecute them.

In the Netherlands, this principle is constitutionally grounded in Article 1, which ensures equality, and Article 17, which guarantees the right to be heard by the courts.

1.2. How the Smedema Case Illustrates a Breakdown of the Rule of Law

The Hans Smedema affair is presented as a case where the Rule of Law allegedly collapsed. The source documents provide several key examples to illustrate this breakdown:

• Denial of Access to Justice: Hans Smedema was allegedly denied his right to file official police reports on multiple occasions (e.g., by officer Haye Bruinsma in 2004) and was systematically refused legal representation, a cornerstone of any fair legal process.
• Lack of Impartial Investigation: Investigations into the alleged crimes were purportedly forbidden by the Ministry of Justice. A specific example cited is that of prosecutor Ruud Rosingh, who allegedly began an investigation in 1991 but was ordered by the Ministry to stop.
• Perversion of Legal Protections: Article 120 of the Dutch Constitution was allegedly used as a shield for criminal complicity. In essence, a constitutional provision designed to respect parliamentary sovereignty was allegedly weaponized to shield criminal activity from judicial scrutiny, based on false information provided to Parliament.
• Parallel to Acknowledged Failures: The Toeslagenaffaire provides a chilling precedent. As a recent, large-scale, and officially acknowledged systemic failure where all three branches of the Dutch government were found to have failed, it establishes that the type of institutional breakdown alleged in the Smedema case is not without parallel.

This alleged systemic dismantling of legal protections is a key indicator of a more severe pathology known as state capture.

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2. State Capture: When Institutions Serve Illicit Interests

2.1. What is State Capture?

State capture is a severe form of systemic corruption where powerful individuals or groups gain control over state decision-making to protect their own illicit interests rather than the public interest.

It occurs when powerful private interests gain significant influence over a state’s decision-making processes. Rather than serving the public good, key state institutions—such as the Ministry of Justice, as alleged in the Smedema affair—are infiltrated and used to protect a corrupt network, shape laws for its benefit, and neutralize oversight.

2.2. Allegations of State Capture in the Smedema Affair

The Smedema case is framed as a textbook example of alleged state capture, where a network within the Dutch government purportedly used its power to conceal crimes and ensure total impunity.

1. Concentration of Power: The allegations center on Joris Demmink, former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice. He allegedly amassed a beslissend en dwingend (“decisive and compelling”) influence over key appointments within the police and judiciary, creating a “culture of fear and intimidation” that silenced dissent.
2. Creation of an Untouchable Network: The source material describes a “secret Omerta organisation” or “Royal Criminal Organization” allegedly operating within the state to conceal crimes and neutralize all oversight. An expert group of whistleblowers formally concluded that the government’s official stance of “no smoke, let alone fire” was "onhoudbaar" (“untenable”) and recommended a full parliamentary inquiry, providing powerful external validation for these claims.
3. Immunity from Above: The most extreme allegation is the existence of a “secret ‘Royal Special Decree’,” supposedly issued by Queen Juliana around 1972/73. This decree allegedly granted immunity to the perpetrators and officially designated the case a state secret, placing the cover-up above the law.

The perversion of these core state institutions shifts the focus from a systemic political failure to its devastating psychological impact on the individual at the center of the affair.

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3. Betrayal Trauma: The Psychology of Violated Trust

3.1. What is Betrayal Trauma?

Betrayal trauma is a specific psychological injury that occurs when the person or institution that a victim depends on for safety, protection, and support becomes the source of abuse or neglect. This form of trauma is considered particularly damaging because it shatters a person’s foundational sense of trust. It creates a profound internal conflict between the victim’s need for self-preservation and their attachment to the abuser, which can lead to a phenomenon known as “betrayal blindness,” where awareness of the betrayal is suppressed to maintain the necessary relationship.

3.2. Examples of Betrayal in the Smedema Case

The allegations in the Hans Smedema case describe a multi-layered betrayal, where the abuse came from the very people and institutions he should have been able to trust the most.

When a person endures such prolonged and inescapable betrayal from multiple trusted sources, it can lead to a specific and severe psychological condition known as Complex PTSD.

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4. C-PTSD: The Scars of Chronic Trauma

4.1. What is Complex PTSD?

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is a psychological condition that can develop in response to prolonged, repeated trauma from which an individual has little or no chance of escape. Unlike standard PTSD, which may result from a single event, C-PTSD is associated with chronic interpersonal abuse, such as being a victim of long-term domestic violence or, as alleged in this case, systemic institutional persecution by trusted entities.

4.2. Why C-PTSD is Relevant to the Smedema Case

C-PTSD is the most appropriate clinical framework for understanding the psychological impact described in the Smedema affair for several key reasons:

• Chronic and Inescapable Trauma: The alleged abuse was not a single event but a decades-long ordeal beginning in 1972. It involved alleged drugging, repeated conditioning, constant psychological manipulation, and a state-level cover-up that made escape impossible.
• Inflicted by Trusted Entities: The trauma was allegedly perpetrated by the very people and institutions responsible for his care and safety—family, doctors, and the state itself. This direct link to betrayal trauma is a hallmark of C-PTSD.
• Resulting Symptoms: The diagnosis of C-PTSD reframes the victim’s symptoms—such as a “pervasive sense of powerlessness” and severe relationship problems—not as inherent personality flaws or “delusions,” the very label the alleged perpetrators used, but as the predictable and clinically recognized consequences of chronic, inescapable trauma.

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Conclusion: Connecting the Concepts

These four concepts reveal a devastating causal chain: an alleged breakdown in the Rule of Law enabled a form of State Capture, which in turn inflicted a multi-layered Betrayal Trauma on its victim, culminating in the profound psychological scars of C-PTSD. The Hans Smedema affair, as documented, serves as a powerful case study of how the failure of state institutions can inflict profound and lasting harm on an individual.

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based on the legal-written-statements on this Blog by victim Author:

Hans Smedema, B. Sc., in forced exile since 2008 surviving in beautiful El Albir, Costa Blanca, Spain