Proposition 50K0776

Projet de loi modifiant l'article 24 de la loi du 20 juillet 1971 sur les funérailles et sépultures.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Dec. 23, 1999

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

cemetery municipality

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

LE

Abstained from voting

FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Jean-Pierre Detremmerie (LE) abstained from voting.
• Karel Pinxten (Open Vld) abstained from voting.

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 18, 2001 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

On 22 March, 3 May and 19 December 2000, the Committee on Internal Affairs discussed the bill of Mr Hendrickx and his colleagues together with the bill adopted by the Senate on 29 June 2000.

The Senate bill only relates to Article 24 and allows that under a number of strict conditions human ashes may be poured out or stored in a place other than the cemetery. The Minister of Internal Affairs stated that the proposed text represents a consensus resulting from in-depth and long-term discussions in the relevant Senate Committee. This addressed the main objections expressed by the Chamber during a previous discussion on this subject.

However, a number of members still had objections to the proposed arrangement, in particular as regards what should happen to the ashes when the person who has them no longer wishes to provide for them, as regards the possible commercialization of this matter and as regards the processing of the mourning process. However, the Minister replicated that commercial activity in this regard is prohibited by the bill itself and that he would include a number of practical guarantees in the implementing decision. These include specific rules concerning the responsibility for keeping the urn, its transfer, the identification system, and so on.

The Minister emphasized the balance of the bill. He also argued that, given the evolution abroad, a regulation is also necessary for us. Finally, he said that all disputes of any kind can be handled without problems before the existing courts.

In addition to an amendment to Article 24, which has the same scope as the Senate Bill, Mr Hendrickx and Brouns’ bill included the proposal to avoid a double investment, in which both the crematorium and the cemetery must have a straw field and a urn field, if the crematorium is located on or near a cemetery. However, the Minister of Home Affairs said that this only applies to intercommunal crematoriums and he raised a number of objections, including in connection with the accounting of costs. The applicants submitted an amendment to that provision that only pure intercommunals can manage a crematorium and that an intercommunal can conclude an agreement with a municipality on the use of strawweeds and columbaria. However, the government wanted to maintain the principle that every municipal cemetery should have a strawweed and columbarium.

The committee finally approved the bill unchanged with 8 votes for and 3 abstentions. The bill of the gentlemen Hendrickx and Brouns was not stopped.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the CVP wants to understand the question of the families who, for emotional reasons, request that the urne be made available to be stored in a place other than the cemetery. We can therefore partially follow the authors of this bill, because we too are faced with the question of, for example, parents of deceased children. We also know that in practice there are already many practices that work this hand in hand. I think of crematoriums just across the border. I know that things happen with urns that are issued in Belgian crematoriums and whose destination is unknown.

Every year, more than 30 000 people choose cremation, and this number continues to rise. In addition, there is a demand for other options for asbestos use. Therefore, colleague Brouns already in the previous legislature submitted a bill to scatter the ashes in a place other than the cemetery. We have now submitted this bill again. However, the current legislative amendment does not provide sufficient guarantees or controls for what happens to the ashes of the deceased after transfer to the survivors.

Furthermore, the text of Article 3 presents a lot of possibilities and uncertainties. Who are the survivors and what happens if several survivors wish a different destination for the urn? I don’t want to ridicule this matter, but what is another place than the cemetery? Is this the death of the deceased? What control can one have over the destiny of the ashes if the family is no longer interested in the urn? Who will control this? How are violations sanctioned?

The Act of 20 July 1971 provides in Article 29 a reference to Article 315 of the Criminal Code, but that Article 315 only refers to cemeteries. Does this mean that the living room of families in which an urne is located should also be considered a cemetery? I also regret that my amendment to entrust the operation of a crematorium exclusively to pure intercommunals has not been adopted. In his letter of circulation of 27 January 2000, the Minister states that it can be both a pure and a mixed intercommunal. One correctly refers to the powers of the regions, but why the specification in the ministerial circulation letter that it can be both a pure and a mixed intercommunal? Colleagues, this opens the gate wide to commercialise the cemeteries. The CVP wishes to expressly object to this because this can be an incentive to lose respect for the deceased.

On the other hand, we take note of the agreement of the Minister and of the delegates of the majority parties in the Committee on Internal Affairs to support a bill that we will submit and which proposes a derogation from the fourth paragraph of Article 1 which stipulates that crematoriums must have their own urn field, strawweed and columbaria. Due to the many uncertainties and the lack of control possibilities contained in the current bill, the CVP will abstain at the vote.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, even if there is no closed vote in the matter since it is of an essential character and that, therefore, everyone must position itself according to their deep convictions, the majority of us is opposed to this text because the article 2, 2° and mainly the article 2, 3° which provides that ashes can be kept in an urn at a place other than the cemetery, poses us an important problem.

Through this kind of measurement that, at first, seems anecdotal, anodine, or even responding to certain concerns, it is towards an important change of civilization that we are moving, without realizing it.

This measure is the source of problems, tensions between families, multiple and unnecessary harassment. From the point of view of ridicule, I advise everyone to go see the latest comedy of Robert De Niro where a messy gentleman is confronted with the funeral urn of the mother of his future father-in-law and where the consequences, both comic and ridiculous that result, show how dangerous it is to keep funeral urns at home. This ridiculous aspect reflects the discomfort that arises from situations like this.

In the same way, you can imagine the fate of those urns which, over the years, are first the object of interest and the center of the family, throne on the fireplace and which, from year to year, if not from generation to generation, will pass from the living room to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the rear kitchen, from the rear kitchen to the loft, from this to the landfill, or in some cases for the most beautiful of them to the front of some brocanteur or antiquary. Nothing is compatible with respect for the dead.

You can also measure the battles that will occur between the sons, the daughters, the widows, the lovers who will fight for the ashes, and see how the judges facing these problems will be able in concreto to practice Solomon's justice to result in whole divisions, fourths or even eighthths of the ashes of their dear deceased. It is not the pious will expressed by Article 3 that specifies that if the preservation of ashes in a place other than the cemetery is put to an end, they will be transferred by the relative who ensures the preservation, or his heirs, to a cemetery where they will be buried.

Through such a measure and in a practical manner, the risks of a series of difficulties, debates, death trade and urns containing ashes are posed, which is quite contrary to a major element of our civilizations.

I draw the attention of the Assembly to a much more serious problem. Without ever addressing the substance of the problem, without much reflection, the text thus modifies an essential element in a society: the relationship to burial.

Anthropologists emphasize the fact that, since the beginning of humanity, the distinction between the living and the dead and the respect due to them through the tombs constitute an essential element of all our civilizations - and even of the oldest such as pre-Columbian or Egyptian ones.

Similarly, this question of the treatment due to the dead through funeral burials is at the heart of the Greco-Latin civilization. In this regard, it is enough for me to recall the problem posed in the drama of Antigone: Creon refuses to give a burial to her brother, and - in doing so - denies him the honor and peace due to the dead. Certainly, the adage says that it is necessary to “let the dead bury the dead”; however, it remains not less that burial remains an element of civilization.

Also, through this text of law that is proposed to us today, and in a very indirect way, I think that we are able to move the line of separation between the private and public spheres.

In all civilizations, however, the problem of burials has always come from the public sphere. Even in our society, cemeteries belong to the public domain and the public society organizes the treatment that is provided to the bodies. For beyond the reasons of public hygiene, there is a time in our societies where mortal remains or funeral ashes must leave the private sphere and can only receive a dignified treatment if they return to the public sphere.

By this article 2, 3°, the question of respect due to the dead is indirectly brought back to the private sphere. This tendency is part of contemporary individualism, that is, of this logic that continues to take over by the private sphere essential elements of humanity.

According to anthropologists, three elements characterize humanity: the differentiation of the living and the dead; the differentiation of men and women; the differentiation of generations and the subsequent prohibition of incest. Surprisingly, our society is breaking a number of rules inherent in the constitution of our civilizations. I can only regret the lack of in-depth debate about the consequences of this evolution. Are we not now witnessing a denial of the role of rupture that the public sphere, the public authority, the state have to play in relation to private persons?

In short, the evolution of this society presents dangers, because of which my group and myself will vote against this text.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, I have listened with attention and with a certain pleasure to the presentation of Mr. Viseur. He returned to ancient Greece to advocate respectful treatment of the memory of the deceased. Nevertheless, I must say that in the debates I have experienced on this subject, even during the previous legislature, everyone who participated in it did this from a certain perspective, but also always with the utmost respect for the memory of the deceased. This is not a question of opposition or majority, but of an individual approach to what is actually the individual processing of a problem, namely when one is faced with a death. To clarify the evolution, I would like to remind you that this debate was already held in the Chamber in 1998. Mr. Tobback was then Minister of Home Affairs and strongly opposed an amendment that stipulated that the ashes in the urn or through asphalt scattering could be transferred to a place other than the cemetery. I also remember that Mr. Tobback, in his own style, cited a number of examples to show that there was a danger of abuse. The House then approved the text as submitted by Mr. Tobback. The amendment was rejected. The case was forwarded to the Senate. The amendment was submitted and adopted. The bill returned to the House, which rejected the amendment adopted by the Senate. Today we are facing the same situation again. There seems to have grown a greater consensus, including among the socialist group as shown in the committee, on this issue. This is just to tell you how quite individually this problem is approached. There are also different opinions and approaches in this regard. For this, we must give the fullest understanding.

What is it really about? This can be caricaturized and all sorts of examples can be cited. Eventually, two possibilities are described to take the urn elsewhere than the cemetery or to spread the ashes through asphalt scattering.

This is the case when the deceased is requested in his will or when it is the wish of the legal representatives if the deceased is a minor.

These are clearly limited cases. Therefore, it will not be possible for everyone, nor will it make it possible to take the ashes of taking anyone with you. There is a clear regulation in this regard. Furthermore, the third paragraph of Article 1 clearly states that it is only possible in two cases, which, in my opinion, greatly limits all abuse.

Furthermore, Mr. Minister, you firmly promised, following the extensive discussion of the committee, to be aware of the concerns of the committee members when issuing the implementing decision which will oversee how the control will be carried out and how the transfer will be carried out.

Thus, despite the fact that the legislative amendment in question provides for a very limited possibility of carrying the ashes of a deceased person, this will be given the necessary attention in the implementing decision. For many of us, Mr. Minister, there will be sufficient guarantees that in the future, when certain persons decide to take home the urn with the ashes of a deceased, this can be done in a respectable manner and that respect for the survivors will be guaranteed. That is what we are concerned with.

I approved the proposal in the committee and will do so at this plenary session, together with other members of my group. Some, however, will have taken a different opinion, but, as I said in my introduction, this is not a matter of majority against opposition. This matter requires an individual approach and it is especially important to be able to respect the way each one is dealing with such a matter.

The bill has already been discussed many times, both in the previous and current legislature.

Indeed, the free disposal of the urn containing funeral ashes is an extremely sensitive subject for various reasons, risk of abuse or conflict between heirs, respect for the memory of the deceased, risk of commercialization, etc.

That is why I had prepared an amendment aimed at preventing any risk of abuse or conflict between heirs, namely informing the civil status officer of the detention or transfer of the funeral urn and the obligation for him to keep up to date a register required for this purpose.

In his response to my proposed amendment and the other amendments prepared by colleagues, the Minister reassured me on this subject. The last paragraph of Article 2 of the draft law provides that “The King may determine other conditions to which the conservation, burial or dispersal of ashes must meet.”

The minister said that he would take into account remarks and proposed amendments to the bill when taking the necessary royal decrees. In fact, it is about being extremely vigilant in this matter as sensitive and delicate as is the free disposition of the funeral urn containing the ashes of the deceased.

For this reason and in order not to be left behind with our European neighbors, France, the Netherlands, Northern Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries where the disposal of ashes is already free, the PRL group FDF MCC will support the bill amending article 24 of the law of 20 July 1971 on funerals and burials. We rely, of course, on the wisdom and vigilance of the government to ensure its follow-up.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, the VLD is favorable to this bill.

We are pleased that the legislation in question today, hopefully at least, will be eased. Mr. Van Hoorebeke and Mrs. Leduc of the Senate, were as if the driving force in this matter.

This is an important social problem. I think it was Mr. Hendrickxs who just talked about more than 30,000 cremations a year. Figures in this regard indicate that this level will continue and even increase. Also during the committee work, we found that the family members involved were sending out signals to ease the legislation.

I am pleased that both the CVP and the SP, under the influence of Mr. Tobback, have taken a step in the right direction.

For us, it remains essential that we, as liberals, assume that it is primarily a very personal, private matter. That is what we find in this bill. One must take away from an emperor-costernal mentality, in which one intervenes in such very personal moments in life.

On the one hand, we are talking about respecting and remembering the dead. On the other hand, we want to give family members the opportunity to experience their sorrow in their own personal way. If the release of the ashes in it can be a positive element, we, as a government, must do so, provided that certain conditions are met. There is a double aspect; on the one hand, respect for the deceased and on the other, respect for the way people want to experience their sorrow in essence.

I heard Mr. Viser thereafter. It was an interesting presentation, but he could have kept it in the committee as well.

As Mr. Detremmerie has subsequently cited, with the current regimes, we cannot speak of commercial exploitation or abuse in France, in the Netherlands, or in the Anglo-Saxon countries. Of course, the government should always remain alert and act when necessary, but let us assume that the average person in this country can show as much respect and respect for the dead and his memory as is the case in other countries.

We have taken a cautious step in the right direction. In this design are clear that a number of safeguards built in. I do not need to repeat them again because most of the people who have held a plea are also in the committee for domestic affairs. A number of safeguards are clearly incorporated. The Minister has taken into account in the committee a number of comments formulated, among others by Mr D'hondt. He has said that he will also look very closely at implementing decisions in order to establish a maximum of safeguards. In those circumstances, the VLD group will approve this bill.

General discussion is closed. The general discussion is closed.