Jan Glastra van Loon

Glastra van Loon speaking at a D66 general meeting in Utrecht in 1979

Jan Frederik Glastra van Loon (born March 16, 1920 in Batavia , † October 22, 2001 in The Hague ) was a Dutch legal scholar and politician of the 66 Democrats (D66).

Life

Glastra van Loon studied medicine , philosophy , law and sociology between 1938 and 1955 , attending universities in London , Groningen , Leiden , Amsterdam , Göttingen and finally Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts) . He received his doctorate in Leiden in 1956 with a dissertation on 'Norm and Action'. There he became associate professor in 1958 and full professor in 1960, specializing in the philosophy of law . From 1966 to 1973 he was Rector of the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. While he devoted himself mainly to politics in the following years, he taught legal philosophy again at the University of Amsterdam from 1978 until his retirement in 1985.

In 1972 he became a member of the Democrats 66 (D'66), whose basic program was influenced to a certain extent by his state philosophy and reform proposals derived from it. In June 1973 he became State Secretary in the Dutch Ministry of Justice . After a dissent with the responsible minister van Agt , he was dismissed from this post in May 1975. From 1975 to 1976 he acted as deputy chairman of the D'66, the following three years saw him as party chairman. From 1980 to 1999 he was a member of the First Chamber of the Dutch Parliament for the D'66, serving as its parliamentary group leader in its first legislative period (until 1985).

From 1987 to 1994 Glastra van Loon was chairman of the Humanist Association ( Humanist Verbond ).