Ferdinand Bernhard Joseph "Ferd" Grapperhaus (born 8 November 1959) is a Dutch politician who served as Minister of Justice and Security in the

Third Rutte cabinet The third Rutte cabinet was the cabinet of the Netherlands from 26 October 2017 until 10 January 2022 (since 15 January 2021 demissionary). It was formed by a coalition government of the political parties People's Party for Freedom and Democra ...

from 26 October 2017 until 10 January 2022. He is a member of the

Christian Democratic Appeal The Christian Democratic Appeal ( , CDA) is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in the Netherlands. Formed as a federation in 1975 by the Catholic People's Party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, and the Christian Historical ...

(CDA).

Family and education

Grapperhaus was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. He is the eldest son of , who served as State Secretary for Finance from 1967 to 1971. Grapperhaus went to the secondary school Aloysius College in The Hague in between 1971 and 1977. He studied

Dutch law The Netherlands uses civil law. The role of case law is small in theory, although, in practice, it is impossible to understand the law in many fields without considering the relevant case law. The Dutch law system is based on the French Civil Co ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

where he obtained an

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

degree in

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in ...

in 1984. In 1995, Grapperhaus was awarded a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree in

labour law Labour laws (also spelled as labor laws), labour code or employment laws are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship be ...

from the same university, under the supervision of Paul F. van der Heijden.

Career

Professional life

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

by occupation, Grapperhaus worked as a lawyer for the

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise consumer, clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and Obligation, respon ...

Schut & Grosheide from 1984 until 1998 when he became a partner at the

Loeff Claeys Verbeke. In 1999, part of Loeff Claeys Verbeke merged with

Allen & Overy Allen & Overy LLP was a British multinational corporation, multinational law firm headquartered in London, England. The firm has 590 partners and over 5,800 employees worldwide. In 2023 A&O reported an increase in revenue to GBP2.1 billion ...

(the other part continuing as

Loyens & Loeff Loyens & Loeff N.V. (L&L) is an international law and tax firm headquartered in Rotterdam. It has offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland (home markets), as well as representation offices in major international financial cen ...

), and Grapperhaus became partner at the A&O branch in

. He served as managing partner for the

branch from 1 February 2015 until 1 September 2017. Grapperhaus has been an

extraordinary professor Academic ranks in Germany are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia. Overview Appointment grades * (Pay grade: ''W3'' or ''W2'') * (''W3'') * (''W2'') * (''W2'', ...

European labour law European labour law regulates basic transnational standards of employment and partnership at work in the European Union and countries adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights. In setting regulatory floors to competition for job-creatin ...

at the

Maastricht University Maastricht University (abbreviated as UM; ) is a public university, public research university in Maastricht, Netherlands. Founded in 1976, it is the second youngest of the thirteen List of universities in the Netherlands, Dutch universities. In ...

since 1 January 2005. In February 2023, he became head of legal affairs of Deloitte Legal, the legal branch of accountancy and consultancy firm

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

, succeeding Frederieke Leeflang. Since 1 June 2023, Grapperhaus is also appointed

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

of "Rule of Law, Society and Legal Practice" at

Erasmus University Rotterdam Erasmus University Rotterdam ( ; abbreviated as EUR) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century Christian humanist and theologian. Erasmus M ...

Politics

He served as a member of the

Social and Economic Council The Social and Economic Council (Dutch language, Dutch: ''Sociaal-Economische Raad'', SER) is a major economic advisory council to the cabinet of the Netherlands. Formally it heads a Publiekrechtelijke Bedrijfsorganisatie, system of sector-based ...

1 April 2006 until 22 May 2015. Following the election of 2017 Grapperhaus was asked to become Minister of Justice and Security in the

. Grapperhaus accepted and resigned as a professor the same day he took office as the new Minister of Justice and Security on 26 October 2017. During his tenure, the name of his ministry was changed from "Ministry of Security and Justice" to "Ministry of Justice and Security", a move costing €2,000,000.

Controversy

As a response to parliamentary questions following the ''

Argos Argos most often refers to: * Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece * Argus (Greek myth), several characters in Greek mythology * Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer in the United Kingdom Argos or ARGOS may also refer to: Businesses ...

'' documentary 'Shards of glass and dark rituals', Grapperhaus said on 27 August 2020 that there would be 'no independent investigation into Ritual Abuse' of children in The Netherlands. The

Green Left The term green left refers primarily to a political affiliation that combines elements of green politics and left-wing politics in countries where the term is used. It is primarily a social justice and human rights oriented ideology, with an exp ...

, the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

and the Labour Party criticised the minister for his decision. On the same day, Grapperhaus responded to public controversy when news media reported about the lack of

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dise ...

at his own wedding amid the

COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands The COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The virus reached the Netherlands on 27 February 2020, when its first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Tilburg. It involved a 56-year-old Dutchman ...

. He agreed to pay a 390 euro fine. On the 26th of June 2021, Grapperhuis sang a made up song on Dutch TV about throwing away protective face masks just as a further wave of infections of Covid 19 in the Netherlands was taking hold. Two weeks later there were 10000 cases per day recorded. On 13 October, the

House of Representatives (Netherlands) The House of Representatives ( , literally "Second Chamber of the States General", or simply ) is the lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of the Netherlands, the States General of the Netherlands, States General, the other one ...

approved a motion in which the PvdA, GL and the SP requested that an independent investigation be conducted into the nature and extent of "organized sadistic abuse of children", bypassing Grapperhaus' original refusal to investigate.

Electoral history

References

External links

;Official *
Mr.Dr. F.B.J. (Ferdinand) Grapperhaus
Parlement & Politiek , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Grapperhaus, Ferdinand 1959 births Living people Allen & Overy people Christian Democratic Appeal politicians Lawyers from Amsterdam Academic staff of Maastricht University Ministers of defence of the Netherlands Ministers of justice of the Netherlands Members of the Social and Economic Council Labour law scholars Politicians from Amsterdam University of Amsterdam alumni 20th-century Dutch civil servants 20th-century Dutch jurists 20th-century Dutch lawyers 20th-century Dutch male writers 21st-century Dutch civil servants 21st-century Dutch educators 21st-century Dutch jurists 21st-century Dutch lawyers 21st-century Dutch male writers 21st-century Dutch politicians