European e-Justice Portal - European Case Law Identifier (ECLI)

National ECLI coordinator

The national ECLI coordinator is the Council for the Judiciary (Raad voor de rechtspraak). You can contact the coordinator at the following email address: kennissystemen@rechtspraak.nl

Country code

The country code for the Netherlands is: [NL]

Generation of national ECLIs

The ECLI was introduced in the Netherlands on 28 June 2013. An ECLI can be allocated to:

all judicial decisions published on the website of the Council for the Judiciary:
all disciplinary decisions published on the official website (on the joint disciplinary website);
all judicial decisions not published on the websites under (a) and (b) but published in magazines or databases, and judicial decisions published commercially as ‘open access’. Magazine editors or database managers who wish to register their decisions can do so via the above email address;
all judicial decisions kept in an internal database of the Council for the Judiciary.

Regardless of whether the decision itself is published on one of the two websites referred to above, all Dutch ECLIs, together with at least the name of the body that delivered the decision, the date of the decision and the case number, can be found on rechtspraak.nl.

Where known, publication references are also given for any reports of the decision in journals or databases. Dutch ECLIs are made up of the following:

‘ECLI’;
country code ‘NL’;
court code (see under the heading ‘ECLI court codes’ (Gerechtscode);
year of the decision;
a serial number. There are two possible formats.
- Before 28 June 2013, virtually all decisions published in the Netherlands were given a country case number (Landelijk Jurisprudentie Nummer, LJN). This LJN always consisted of two letters and four figures, e.g.: ‘AB1234’. For reasons of consistency, this LJN has been included as the fifth part of the ECLI code.
- As of 28 June 2013, LJNs are no longer allocated. All decisions given an ECLI after that date have an ascending serial number consisting solely of figures. This may also be the case for decisions issued before 28 June 2013.

The most important court codes

The Netherlands has a large number of law courts. The codes of the most important Dutch courts are listed in the table below.

Highest Courts
HR	Hoge Raad (Supreme Court)
PHR	Parket bij de Hoge Raad (Supreme Court Public Prosecutor's Office) (Advocate-General)
RVS	Raad van State (Council of State)
CRVB	Centrale Raad van Beroep (Court of last instance in social security matters)
CBB	College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (Administrative court of last instance in matters of trade and industry)
*Courts of Appeal (Appelgerechten)*
GHAMS	Gerechtshof Amsterdam
GHARL	Gerechtshof Arnhem-Leeuwarden
GHDHA	Gerechtshof Den Haag
GHSHE	Gerechtshof 's-Hertogenbosch
*District courts (Rechtbanken)*
RBAMS	Rechtbank Amsterdam
RBDHA	Rechtbank Den Haag
RBGEL	Rechtbank Gelderland
RBLIM	Rechtbank Limburg
RBMNE	Rechtbank Midden-Nederland
RBNHO	Rechtbank Noord-Holland
RBNNE	Rechtbank Noord-Nederland
RBOBR	Rechtbank Oost-Brabant
RBOVE	Rechtbank Overijssel
RBROT	Rechtbank Rotterdam
RBZWB	Rechtbank Zeeland-West-Brabant

All court codes

A full list of Dutch court codes, in alphabetical order, is available here. Bodies no longer in existence are indicated as ‘abolished’ (opgeheven).

Last update: 08/01/2024

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