Summary. Sentencing law and sentencing decision making

The initial context of this research – judicial cooperation with regard to consistency in sentencing This dissertation is part of a research project in which the phenomenon of judicial cooperation in several areas of the law has been taken as a starting point. The concept of judicial cooperation describes informal structures and products thereof of judicial policymaking for the purpose of the settlement of legal cases. Results of judicial cooperation concern for example the calculation of alimony, procedural rules for the settlement of civil cases and rules for the calculation of compensation after the (non voluntary) annulment of employment contracts. The initial focus of this research has been the rise of forms of judicial cooperation with regard to the topic of sentencing. To promote consistency in sentencing, the judiciary has over the years taken steps to develop so called starting-points or orientation points for sentencing as well as a database for sentencing. Both ‘instruments’ lack a formal status from a legal point of view, but especially the starting or orientation points proved to be influential to the decision making process. The startingor orientation points (hereafter: orientation points) for sentencing offer a short type-description of the fact combined with either a fixed indication of the sentence to impose, or an indication of the bandwidth within which the actual imposed sentence could be. The database for sentencing offers, in contrast to the orientation points, no specific descriptions of so-called standard cases, but aims primarily to support judges searching for similar cases by providing insight into sentencing decisions in individual cases made by other judges.