Proposition 51K2841

Projet de loi relatif à l'internement des personnes atteintes d'un trouble mental.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP MR Open Vld Vooruit Purple Ⅰ

Submission date

Jan. 10, 2007

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

imprisonment psychiatric confinement mentally disabled person rights of the defence appeal victim criminal procedure enforcement of ruling alternative sentence release on licence

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Vooruit PS | SP Open Vld MR

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Discussion ¶

March 1, 2007 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

We will have a discussion on the whole. It is a long document that contains 157 articles.

The [...]

Mr. Van Parys, you make a pertinent comment.

I will ensure that the Minister of Justice is present during the reading of the report.

There is no harm to the report; it is the committee report, which is presented here.

Mr. Minister of Internal Affairs, can I ask you to remain present? I call on the Minister of Justice.

Is that right, Mr. Van Parys?

The Ecce Mulier.

Mijnheer Van Parys, u oefent op de minister van Justitie een ongelooflijke invloed uit. Your wishes are orders.

The [...]

This is also a good exchange, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I think that we, together with all the members of the Committee on Justice, should thank the services for the very delicate document they have provided to us. This is the report and a report from the hearing.

The committee has devoted seven meetings to this draft of which two meetings extra muros. We started with an introduction by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, who spoke about the Dutroux case that shaken our country in 1996. Since then, numerous reforms have been carried out in the field of justice and security. The Minister pointed out the fact that, among other things, the structure of the penalty enforcement was fundamentally changed. The law-Lejeune was radically reformed. The provisional release committees were established and have recently emerged in the establishment of the criminal enforcement courts.

The Minister also pointed out that the regrettable case, with which she began in her presentation, has not spared the social defence. We are dealing with a law of 1 July 1964. This year is relative because the 1964 law was actually an improvement to the 1930 law. At that time, our respectable president had not even been born.

The draft law presented for discussion actually builds on the numerous recommendations given by the so-called Delva committee. This committee owes its name to its chairman. In that committee a whole range of experts were brought together to discuss the status and the situation of the interned.

The Minister informed us that the bill has a double objective. On the one hand, it must protect society and, on the other hand, it must guarantee appropriate therapeutic support to persons who have committed a crime or crime, who suffer from a mental disorder that has seriously impaired their discernment and which pose a danger to society.

The Government has chosen to entrust the succession of interned persons to the criminal enforcement courts and therefore no longer to the social protection commissions or the commissions for the protection of society.

What are the strengths of the design?

First and foremost, a new definition of mental illness has been introduced into the law. The terms used so far, namely madness, severe state of mental disorder and weakness, have no longer been adapted at all and eventually even proved to be a source of confusion. The detention of an offender suffering from a mental disorder – the new term – will now be subject to three conditions. First, the condition of proof of the facts charged him. Second, the persistent nature of his disturbed state of mind. Third, the danger it poses to society.

The psychiatric expertises are the second force line. Psychiatric expertise will be mandatory from now on. So far this has not been the case. A number of qualitative criteria are imposed on the expert. The expert will also need to have an accreditation. An additional novelty is that the expert will be able to work on a multidisciplinary level and therefore will be able to be assisted by, among other things, psychological, criminological and social expertise.

The third force line is the judicial decision, which now allows for immediate detention of the person against whom an internment is issued and who was not in custody. In addition, a number of professional prohibitions will be issued.

The fourth line concerns the victims. The victims of the perpetrator of a crime that was interned had no rights so far. The Minister insisted that this gap needs to be corrected urgently. The Government therefore proposes that these provisions be adopted for the victims, regardless of whether the perpetrator was convicted or interned.

The fifth force line concerns the various modalities of implementation of the internering measure. The current law provides for the release on trial, the final release and the restricted freedom. In practice, the Social Protection Committees have developed a number of other implementation modalities for which there was no legal basis. This is of course very precarious. The Government wants to frame the different methods of execution by setting out a procedure and determining the conditions for granting. An important fact is that the duration of the trial period for the purposes of trial release is at least two years and that this period of two years is renewable.

Criminal enforcement courts are the sixth force line. As I have already said, the penalty enforcement courts will now have jurisdiction over all decisions relating to the execution of the detention.

The penalty enforcement court will decide in which institution the interned person will be placed. In order to make this work in practice, the Minister announced that the criminal enforcement courts will work closely with coordinators, who will be hired in each jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal and thus lay the link between the institutions, the criminal enforcement courts and the healthcare sector.

I come to the seventh force line, the guidance of the persons who are released on trial. This will be accompanied by the parket.

The eighth force line is about the final release. It can only be granted after a trial release of at least two years and provided that the mental disorder has improved sufficiently to no longer have to fear that the interned will commit new criminal offences.

The ninth force line concerns the internment of convicted persons. The bill states that the criminal enforcement courts have that competence. Thus, they will be able to intern the convicted who are affected by a mental disorder during their detention. This logically means that the interned convicted person will not be able to remain interned after the date of the planned sentence, when he was convicted. From that moment on, the law of 26 June 1990 on the protection of the person of the mentally ill will be applicable and the peace judge will be competent, at the request of the public prosecutor.

What are the Minister’s conclusions?

The reform of the detention system means a new phase in building a coherent model of execution and measures. No matter how important this reform is, it would be nothing without a parallel expansion of a genuine health care network. The Minister also cited the need to develop the policy on two main main lines, in the first place increasing the capacity of the institutions of social protection. Second, it is necessary to establish around these institutions of social protection structures for the adequate reception and responsibility of the interned, with the objective of course the reintegration into society.

The Minister cited a number of data, such as the establishment of two new institutions for social protection in Gent and Antwerp. Existing pilot projects will now be financed in a structural way. On the Dutch-speaking side, 120 additional seats will be created in Rekem, Bierbeek and Zelzate. 20 additional beds will be added to the Tyteca Institute in Brussels, 180 PVT beds will be converted into beds for interned persons and 90 new protected residential areas will be added. In Bierbeek, Rekem, Zelzate and Antwerp there are 20 beds per institution, in Brussels there are 10 places, in Paifve there are in 2007 45 new places for mid and high security, in Doornik there are 40 specific places for the external circuit, and so on.

After the general introduction of the Minister, colleague Verherstraeten explained his bill. It was based on the bill that the former Minister of Justice, Stefaan De Clerck, had submitted in the mid-1990s. It was subsequently taken over in a slightly modified form by Minister Verwilghen. Collega Verherstraeten has taken over the defining part of that last bill.

Afterwards, your reporter also explained his bill. I will return to this later during the general discussion. Then colleague Giet, who I think will intervene later, explained his bill.

During the general discussion, there were, first of all, comments from colleague Schoofs who found that Flanders adopted a completely different approach to the detention of criminals with a mental disorder than Wallonia. He noted that the issue is primarily approached in criminal law. He would regret if only lawyers were allowed to sit in the criminal enforcement courts when they make decisions on internships. Finally, he asked questions about the budgetary impact.

Collega Wathelet, on his part, argued that sufficient material resources and personnel should be provided to implement this law. The protection of society has two important aspects, one aspect of treatment and one aspect of detention. He referred to the hearings we held and the discussion on the composition of the criminal enforcement courts. He also pointed out that the bill does not provide for the unification of the expert investigation as such, which he regrets. Regarding the legal status of the victim or the victims, he believes that the bill represents a real step forward. On the other hand, the use of the concept of “victim interest” may open the door to certain interpretation problems and be a source of frustration for the victim. Finally, Mr Wathelet emphasized the importance of providing the material resources and the personnel necessary for the implementation of the draft law.

Col. Malmendier had a number of questions, including why the peace judge should decide and not the penalty enforcement court when it comes to an interned detainee who is at the end of his sentence. He also returned to the question of the importance of the victim. If an interned person withdraws from the agreed care in a probationary release, he argues that not only the victim’s interest is at stake, but also that of the whole society.

Collega Lalieux hopes that the budget resources will be released to encourage the institutions to volunteer for this type of people. She considers that the law also aims to ensure the necessary coherence with the reform of the external legal status of the detainees and provides for the more professional treatment and resocialization of the persons concerned in cooperation with healthcare.

The rapporteur also took the floor and referred to his experience in the Committee on Social Protection and will return to that later in the general discussion.

Later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs gave the floor. He argues that the draft law stipulates that the coordinators in each jurisdiction form a link between the institutions and the criminal enforcement courts. If it is chosen for the criminal enforcement courts, then he says there will be an official conflict between Justice and Healthcare. The director of the institution must now give his advice on the permission of electronic surveillance, on the limited internment, or even on the engagement, but according to Mr. Verherstraeten, the directions already complain about the workload they have received by the laws on the external legal status of the detainees and on the criminal enforcement courts. He asks whether the victims have been better informed in practice since the entry into force of the Law on Criminal Enforcement Courts and regrets the inadequate role that the bill gives the Penitentiary Research and Clinical Observation Centre.

Collega Verherstraeten also invited the committee members to read the article that appeared in the summer of 2006 in the journal “Orde van de dag”: “Criminality and society: the judicial expertise in Belgium”. This article concerns in particular the remuneration of the experts. Mr Verherstraeten also regrets that the bill is not accompanied by a financial plan.

Mr Courtois concludes a consensus on the need to provide for measures towards the weakest.

Collega Borginon welcomes the fact that the committee has adopted a number of legislative texts since the beginning of this parliamentary period, in particular the Dupont Act, the legislative provisions on the criminal enforcement courts, on the external legal status of detainees, as well as now on the interned. He believes that the presence of a physician-psychiatrist in the decision-making body is subject to discussion. However, he argues that an expert report in case of contradiction can also guarantee that the person concerned is expertly assessed.

Collega Casaer has spoken from experience: he has seen how deplorable the condition in the psychiatric department of the Prison of Vorst is. He argues that the bill, once adopted, will undoubtedly serve as a lever to release budgetary resources. Finally, on the entry into force, he said that it will still be necessary to discuss the time when the draft law being discussed will be best implemented in practice.

Colleague Van Parys held an extensive speech. He will later intervene himself in the general discussion, so I will only cite the main lines. He cited the history of the bill. He then cited the Delva committee’s non-followed recommendations on the bill, in particular three forms of expert examination, the composition of the committees, and the appeal options. He subsequently assessed the draft law as a whole and discussed, among other things, the inobservation station and the POKO, the composition of the Committee of Criminal Enforcement Courts and the presence of a psychiatrist or not. He also spoke of the possibilities of appeal, which is a step backwards from the law of 10 February 1998.

He also expressed a number of important objections, during the hearing before the general discussion, including the lack of an opinion from the College of Attorneys-General. He also argued that the draft law does not sufficiently distinguish between the security measures in respect of interned persons and the punishment.

He also pointed out that in Flanders a healthcare circuit has been developed that responds flexibly and smoothly to a person-centric treatment, and that that approach is not compatible with the static and rigorous procedures in the draft law.

He believes that the draft law is tied to the situation in the French-speaking region.

Finally, he spoke about the missing opinions and documents, in which he believed that an opinion should have been requested from the Public Health Committee of our Chamber. In addition, according to colleague Van Parys, it was desirable that the committee had been assisted by one or more experts. And as I just said, there should have been an opinion from the College of Attorneys-General and the High Council for Justice.

Finally, colleague Van Parys requested a communication from the BPR regarding the courts.

The Minister of Justice has answered the various questions and comments. After the replicas, the members of the committee passed to the article-by-article discussion and the vote, and then the vote as a whole, which eventually approved the bill with 9 votes for and 5 abstentions. I thank you.

The following speakers are included in the general discussion: Mr Van Parys, Malmendier, Muls and Wathelet and Mrs Lalieux.

I just spoke with the Minister. I will interrupt the session around 18.30 hours to begin the continuation of our work with a new session around 19 hours, 19.15 hours.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, in May 1999, the so-called Delva Committee, the commission established by then Minister De Clerck with the task of making recommendations and proposals regarding a new law on the interned and was chaired by Baron Delva, published its recommendations with the intention that on the basis thereof a new legislation would be made. The government took eight years, after the presentation of that committee, to submit a bill relating to the problem of the interned. Eight years later, the Parliament can decide on a bill by the Minister of Justice.

The Parliament has been given eight days to discuss the bill. The Minister of Justice has chased the bill, which contains 156 articles, in eight days time by the Chamber Committee for Justice. I would like to remind you of the data. On Thursday 1 February, in the plenary session of the Chamber, the high urgency of the treatment of the bill was approved. On Friday and Saturday 2 and 3 February, the draft law extra muros was discussed in the Committee for Justice. The discussion of the draft law in the Justice Committee was closed on Tuesday 6 February. Therefore, the Parliament had not yet eight days to discuss this important bill.

Of course, it could not be other than that the extremely hasty treatment of the matter would have deplorable consequences. In my presentation – I will limit myself to the essential – I would like to point out the deplorable consequences of the fact that the bill had to be dealt with in Parliament in such a hasty manner.

First, the very important recommendations of the Delva Committee of 1999 were not taken into account.

Second, the fundamental comments of the actors during the hearings and in the context of the hearings were not taken into account.

Third, the position of the High Council for Justice was not taken into account.

Finally, the position of the League for Human Rights was not taken into account.

I would like to introduce a few recommendations from the Delva committee that were not followed in the draft law. The main recommendation that was not followed was that concerning the monitoring of the most severe risk cases in a specialized center.

The following was also discussed during the hearings. The problem of the interned is ⁇ delicate and is most important with regard to about 10% of the interned who pose a serious risk to society. Professor Casselman pointed out this during the hearings.

It is in this category that we find, among other things, the files that have experienced a special media interest and an emotional interest in the public opinion. Of course, I refer here to the dossier that was dealt with in the Dutroux Commission, in particular the dossier Derochette. I also refer to the more recent case-Ait Oud, which is situated in the sphere of this problemology and which has rightly addressed people in a special way because of its consequences.

With regard to these heavy risk dossiers, the Delva Committee had explicitly recommended that for this category of interned persons, prior to a decision on them in connection with their internering, release or release on trial, there should be a period of observation within the framework of a psychiatric examination.

This was a very important recommendation from the Delva committee to prevent things like those from the Derochette dossier or from the Ait Oud dossier of last year. To prevent such things, we should have a closed residential center, a specialized observatory center where these detainees could be observed depending on the decision to be made. This would enable a decision to be made with knowledge of the facts and would ensure the society as much as possible against recurrence and protect potential victims from horrible events as in the aforementioned files also happened.

Observation by specialized people should allow the development of the customized method of treatment in order thus to assist the mentally disabled person as much as possible.

Thus we would have the maximum guarantee that files like those of Derochette and Ait Oud could not happen again.

In the Delva Committee and in the following literature, it has been repeatedly stated that the care in the psychiatric annexes of the prisons is not sufficient for this. These psychiatric annexes of prisons are not equipped for this purpose. That observation, by the way, would not be possible anyway in the psychiatric annexes of the prisons due to the double role that must be fulfilled there. On the one hand, there is the role of care, of treatment and, on the other hand, the role of assessment. It is, of course, not possible that in the same institution the same persons should provide the care, ensure the treatment and, on the other hand, assess whether or not the observation is carried out. This is obvious. These are conflicting interests that cannot be united.

That is why the Delva Committee proposed – this was a very important passage in this lively and interesting report – to establish a specialized observatory center where the most skilled people, psychiatrists and psychologists, who are engaged in this matter, who can with knowledge of matters follow this matter in order to observe these people with a mental disorder and on the basis thereof make the right decision. At the same time, it would be true that in that specialized observatory center one could also gradually acquire the know-how that is necessary and must be built up in order to be able to judge this very difficult matter with knowledge of matters.

This has been left behind. This whole suggestion, that important suggestion, that important recommendation of the Delva committee, has simply been laid aside. It is especially unfortunate because one actually only had to connect with what already existed. By Royal Decree of 19 April 1999, such an observatory center was established. So it existed. It was established. The framework was created. The architecture was present. In the period 1999-2007 this institution has never been realized, despite all the recommendations of the Parliamentary Investigative Committees, despite the approved reports and recommendations here in this plenary session of the Chamber, unanimously approved by all members of this committee by the way.

Colleagues, if we had completed this, then we also in this country had an institute such as the Pieter Baan Centre in the Netherlands, where that observation effectively takes place and in which one can make decisions with knowledge of matters with regard to those most serious risk cases of people with a mental disorder.

The result of all this is that this bill and this law just override the primary task that we as politicians had with regard to the problem that we had discussed in the parliamentary investigation committees, with regard to the victims, with regard to all family members who have ever faced this problem.

Our primary mission was to ensure that we have the tools to make decisions with regard to interned persons that could guarantee the maximum security of society and the best possible therapy for these people.

Well, colleagues, this has not happened in this design in an incomprehensible way. We had 8 years to do it. There was a royal decision. We did not do this. The Minister of Justice has said in the committee that we will have to do this later because now there is no time and no money for it. If after eight years we do not have the time or money to do so, then those who will pass this law will always bear the political responsibility for the fact that we have missed the opportunity to take such initiative. All the specialists working on this subject agreed on this initiative, by the way. What has this committee served if one simply puts the main recommendations aside? This is especially unfortunate and it is a special responsibility for those who have taken the initiative for this bill and for those who will approve it if necessary.

There were two other important recommendations from the Internering Committee that we do not find in the bill, including the composition of the committee. It is now the criminal enforcement courts that will be given this task. The Delva committee had explicitly requested that in the committee that must judge the internering, in this case the criminal enforcement court, a psychiatrist would sit as a permanent expert. This is obvious, obvious, obvious, colleagues. It would not have cost much either. There was no discussion about the resources. However, even this was counted outside the Minister of Justice. One would even refuse to accept the obvious statement that in the criminal enforcement courts, with regard to the matter of the interned, a psychiatrist must sit.

A third recommendation of the Delva committee that was not followed is the problem of the appeal. In the draft law, only a cassation appeal is possible with regard to decisions relating to the internment. We do not understand why there was no provision for an appeal here. We understand it all the less because already by law of 10 February 1998 was provided that the lawyer of the interned profession could appeal against the decision concerning the release on trial, or the final release. Well, they screw this back. There is no possibility of appeal in this bill. Only a cassation appeal is possible. I do not understand that this fundamental right towards the interned or his advisor – there can be discussed, Mr. Muls, about whether it can be only the lawyer or the interned himself – was not prevented. I think it would have been very important to provide this professional opportunity.

We note that there are three very important shortcomings. These shortcomings were explicitly included by specialists in their recommendations, but yet they are not found in this draft law.

I believe that in the general discussion in the committee, despite the impossible time pressure that rested on the members, we conducted a very thorough discussion on this problem. This has been discussed there. In the discussion of the articles, however, there was not even the time, the space, the possibility, the intention to meet these fundamental recommendations. This is especially unfortunate for this matter. How is it possible that we have to deal with this matter in eight days, when the government has eight years to translate the recommendations of the Delva committee into legislative work?

In addition, legislative proposals were also submitted in this sense, for example by Mr De Clerck in the previous legislature. There were numerous bills, which Mr. Muls, by the way, listed in his excellent report. The bills were present in the previous and in this legislature, in the House and in the Senate, to regulate this matter. The government has waited until just before the end of this session to press this matter through in a way that is absolutely inappropriate.

A second element of disappointment is the fact that we have had to conclude that this bill has in no way responded to the objections expressed during the hearing. These objections have been expressed by many representative people in the field, psychiatrists and people from the Committee for the Protection of Society.

I will limit myself to the essential. It is not my intention to stretch the debates. I would only like to point out a few important pain points. I would like to focus on the content rather than the formality of the fact that we are making legislation here in such a way.

All the actors, and all the others who have advised us in some way on this matter, have always pointed out the fact that the detention is a very specific measure. It is a security measure and therefore not a punishment. Those who are engaged in this matter, the colleagues of the Justice Committee and those who themselves have been active in a Commission for the Protection of Society, know this distinction too well. It is a basic given.

The actors, the people on the ground, whom we consulted, who made the effort to pass through this document in two or three days, which in itself was an inappropriate way of working, have repeatedly said that the bill places itself too much in the sphere of punishment enforcement. In this way, the specificity of the detention is taken too little into account. I hear Professor Casselman and Dr. Van Peteghem say very clearly during the hearings that the flexible care circuit that exists in Flanders is not compatible with the static and rigorous procedures of the law. Then it is about that in Flanders a reality of care circuit has emerged that has different modalities of treatment of these people with a mental disorder.

In Flanders, treatment takes place in residential units, in sheltered workshops, at home under supervision, in short, all kinds of modalities that relate to the specific personal situations of each interned individual who is a person in itself who deserves the necessary respect. That care circuit exists. One has the opportunity to respond to it and to take the appropriate measures.

By referring to this matter in the terms contained in the draft law with the procedure provided therein for the criminal enforcement courts, a procedure is organised which does not allow the individual person of the interned to grant the treatment which is absolutely necessary. During the hearings, I heard Mr. Heimans, Chairman of the Commission for the Protection of the Society in Gent, say that the path of the convicted, the path of the conditional release as determined in the bill, is a different path than that of the internment. The proposed procedures of the VI procedure are, in his opinion, in fact useless for the interned.

Mrs. Minister, this is not a communication from the opposition or someone who absolutely wants to be in conflict with the present draft. Heimans is driven and animated by this matter. He has years of experience in this field. This is recognized by everyone. They communicated their position to us. The Parliament was unable to answer – I say not wanting to give – because the Minister did not want to create the conditions for this.

There is insufficient consideration of the therapeutic reality that, ⁇ in Flanders, is the reality of an integrated care circuit and the organization of the care institutions. We cannot compare this reality at all with the reality in prison. There is a fundamental problem with the starting point of this draft, in particular that the situation of the convicted and that of the conditional release is transposed to the interned. This is reflected in the fact that the criminal enforcement courts in the same composition have this competence. They are not even provided with the experts such as the psychiatrist. The fundamental criticism of the actors has not been followed.

A second fundamental criticism raised during the hearings relates to the timing and incorporation of the procedure relating to persons with a mental disorder into the jurisdiction of the criminal enforcement courts.

In this regard, I would like to quote President Heimans. He said very explicitly: “Given the great difficulties already expected with great certainty in the opening of the new penal courts, it is completely inappropriate to incorporate even the very complex sector of the interned in the functioning of the penal courts.” This, however, is a very clear warning to the Parliament and to the House, which has the responsibility of drawing up proper legislation on internships.

Professor Casselman said during the hearings that the timing of the entry into force was irresponsible and that the functioning of the criminal enforcement courts had to be evaluated before the jurisdiction over the interned would be entrusted to the criminal enforcement courts.

These are people of the field, who are scientifically and practically engaged in this matter. They pressed us with the nose on the facts and pointed out that there must be a new legislation in which the substantial, essential data they cited must be retrieved. They were not preserved. We have not even had the time to submit possible amendments that would respond to it, in so far as they would already have had some chance of success, given the atmosphere created in this regard.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Deputy Prime Minister, colleagues, it seems to me still necessary to point out the fact that our committee has had to function without being able to have a number of documents and opinions which, in my opinion, were essential for the proper treatment of this important matter for the persons eligible for internment and even more for those who are the victims of people who have a mental disorder.

It would have been obvious – this does not need a plea – that for this matter the opinion would have been sought from the Public Health Committee. We could also have met in a mixed committee. Was it obvious that for this matter, which is essentially a matter of public health, we would have heard at least the colleagues who specialize in it? In fact, this did not have to be requested. I think this was evident in the organization of the work. However, we have come into a situation, at the end of this legislature, in which it no longer matters what is stated in the law. There must be a law and one must be able to say, “we have legified on this matter,” whatever may be stated in the law. That is very regrettable.

Wat het advies van het College van prosecutors-general betreft, de vertegenwoordiger van het College die wij hebben gehoord tijdens de hoorzittingen, heeft zelf gevraagd of er een advies werd gevraagd aan het College van prosecutors-general in desgevallend waarom niet. Inderdaad, zoals collega Casaer zei, het antwoord van de minister was: “And then?” Werd het advies van College van prosecutors-general gevraagd? “No, and then what?”

So what, Mr President. The College of Attorneys General, and then?

Who said that?

You say it yourself, Mr. President.

When one is faced with these reactions, colleagues, reactions like "et alors?" or "so what?", then in this Parliament one knows what one is doing!. To what could this serve? What could this agency now contribute? What are we doing here? It must be approved as soon as possible so that we get rid of it. At the assessment meeting of the Council of Ministers, one can say that a law concerning the interned has been adopted. That is what it is, only that is the intention. The extra muros meeting should only serve this purpose. Before that, the Minister of Justice abused and used the Chamber’s Justice Committee, in every sense of the word.

It was, of course, obvious that we would receive the advice of the High Court of Justice. However, this was also not necessary. One has not said "so what?" or "et après?", one has said that this was actually not necessary. Well, the Supreme Council for Justice was not asked for advice, but has at some point with us to establish that the discussion of the bill concerning persons with mental disorders was on the agenda of the plenary session of the Chamber today. We received a fire letter from the Supreme Council for Justice 24 or 48 hours ago stating that they had no time at all to study this in depth, let alone to formulate an opinion. However, they would like to point out to the members of the House of Representatives a number of fundamental problems facing this law.

We did not receive their advice and therefore, of course, could not take it into account. We are now facing the fact that we are facing these comments. I will not read this in extenso, it has at least been passed on to the members of the Justice Committee. Members of the Chamber should be aware of this.

And then ? What should we care, Mr. President? If we have to consider the Supreme Council for Justice, where does it end?

The High Council of Justice points out the necessary specificity of the body that should judge in this regard. I quote from the letter of the High Council for Justice to the Chamber: “Wouldn’t it be better, in other words, to assign the legal competence over the interned to a specific body?” It is said that in those criminal enforcement courts an assessor specialized in psychiatry should sit instead of the assessor specialized in prison matters.

I think this is the evidence self. Everyone has told us. In the general discussion, everyone agreed on this. However, the Minister says no, so it is no. It is the evidence itself, but the minister says no.

Then in that same letter, for the sake of the High Council for Justice – and rightly – it is said that when they deal with the matters of the interned, they should be renamed as courts for punishments and measures, in order to distinguish precisely between the security measure and the punishment. That is obvious, ladies and gentlemen of this Parliament, but this too could not be taken into account because I do not know what reason. There was no possibility to provide these obvious things in this law.

The High Court of Justice points out the workload. It is said in that letter that the Commission for the Protection of the Society of Gent in 2005 dealt with 533 cases, Mr. the Chairman, Mrs. the Minister, during 27 sessions. The commission for the protection of the company of Vorst in 2006 dealt with 602 cases during 40 sessions. The Supreme Council thus poses the legitimate question whether the establishment of four additional criminal enforcement courts, announced by the Council of Ministers on 21 December 2006, will be sufficient to absorb this additional workload. “This question expresses concern not only with regard to the workload of the magistrates and assessors concerned, but also with regard to the quality of the treatment of the interned.” Then one will say, “so what?” And then, it will happen after the elections and it will therefore be the care and responsibility of the government that will be responsible at that moment.

It goes on in the letter of the High Council in relation to the resources. I will save you the further reading of this. I could also inform you of the letter of the League for Human Rights, which we have received in the Justice Committee. So what? And then ? What do we do with it?

Colleagues, I am going to conclude this statement because I am too well aware of the fact that this argument will not inspire the majority to engage with the rightful comments of the people who have engaged in this matter and have the responsibility for it. I would like to tell you, colleagues, that it is especially regrettable that the principled, fundamental and unambiguous objections of all those dealing with this matter have not been taken into account. I do not understand that they did not want to do this. A methodology has been used which has also made it impossible for the members of the majority in the Justice Committee to assume their responsibility. I am fully aware of this.

But the question then is: what does this mean if the Minister of Justice wants to hunt such a bill through the commission within 8 days? Is it accepted or is it not accepted? I understand, of course, that the pressure is ⁇ great, but the responsibility, which is enormous, of course, remains, because we have all said the same thing in all those parliamentary investigation committees and we have all unanimously approved that. And now we will here or you will approve a law that is not compliant and that continues to contain all existing risks.

All you can do, colleagues of the majority, today is to say to the Minister of Justice: we do not take that; we wish at least to have the opportunity to have a thorough and thorough consideration of such an important matter; we wish to have the opportunity to respond to the fundamental comments formulated in the Delva committee and during the hearings. You should have the courage to say to the Minister of Justice: we do not accept this practice in Parliament; we stand on our lines; we have our function of control and legislation here. We do not accept that! You can still do so by either not approving the bill, or asking for postponement of the discussion.

I invite you to do so, because I think it is your full responsibility to take this into account on all that has been said to us in the committee. If you do not do so, you will no longer have to organize hearings the next time, and you will have to bring the people who have made the enormous effort to review the documents in three days to come to Parliament, and then eventually decide that everything they have said was of no count at all. Ladies and gentlemen, you have your responsibility. We will take our allessins!

De volgende leden have zich nog ingeschreven om het woord te voeren: from heren Malmendier, Muls, Wathelet in Casaer, mevrouw Lalieux in de heer Schoofs. Can I with this list for general discussion close? (Instemming of voting)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. Van Parys and his armada of counter-arguments he developed before us to prevent this law from being voted.

However, I would like to emphasize that this legislature has enabled us to work consistently towards the development and implementation of a genuine right to the execution of prison sentences. We have adopted the Law of Principles on the Penitentiary Administration and the Legal Status of Prisoners, the Law on the External Legal Status of Persons Condemned to a Penalty of Deprivation of Liberty and the rights recognized to the victim in the manner of execution of the penalty; we have also adopted the Law establishing the courts of execution of the penalty. These various laws were under construction for years and it was this majority that implemented them.

Significant work has been done. However, it remains to reform and modernize the Social Protection Law. The Government was committed to this in the Government Agreement of July 2003. The draft law under consideration fulfils this commitment.

It is not about presenting in detail the contents of the project text, but some aspects deserve to be highlighted.

The draft text clarifies the concept of mental illness and proposes to use the terms "mental disorder", more in line with current conceptions of psychiatry. This mental disorder may give rise to the internment of a person provided that he has committed a fact qualified as a crime or a crime punishable by a sentence of imprisonment; that at the time of the judgment, he is affected by a mental disorder which has abolished or seriously altered his ability to discern or control his actions; that the danger exists that he commits new offences due to his mental disorder. In doing so, a more dynamic and more open definition of the concept of mental illness is given to the scientific developments.

Another major point of the reform is psychiatric expertise. Any internship must be preceded by a psychiatric expert. In order to improve the quality of this expertise, it will have to meet various criteria and be executed by an expert recognized by the SPF Public Health on the basis of a number of quality criteria.

In addition, the form of the expert report will also be determined by royal decree. The idea is to develop a model-type report. This approach is very different from the one developed by Mr. Van Parys, but I think she is equally performing.

The judiciary that decides internship will be granted new powers. They may order immediate imprisonment if there is concern that the intern is trying to escape the execution of the security measure or if there is concern that it presents a serious and immediate danger to the physical or psychological integrity of third parties. It could also issue a series of professional prohibitions against perpetrators of certain sexual offences committed against or with the participation of a minor.

In an effort to ensure greater legal and public certainty, the text submitted to us provides a legal basis for the procedures for the execution of the internment that the social defence commissions have developed; I think of exit permits or holidays. These conditions were granted outside of any legal basis. The text also complements these terms by introducing the possibility of granting electronic surveillance or limited detention.

The conditions for granting these modalities have thus been supplemented. In fact, the conditions provided by the Social Protection Act were completely insufficient.

With regard to release for trial, electronic surveillance or limited detention, they may only be granted if the following conditions are met.

There must not be, in the head of the interned, contraindications to which the establishment of special conditions cannot meet. These contraindications include: the absence of prospects for social reintegration of the interned; the insufficient improvement of the mental disorder affected by the interned; the risk that he commits serious offences; the risk that he impairs the victims; the attitude of the interned to the facts qualified as crime or crime that led to his internment; the refusal of the interned to follow guidance or treatment deemed useful for him; his inability to do so in the event that the interested person has been interned for sexual offences if they were committed on a minor or with his participation.

The interned person marks his agreement on the general or special conditions that may be attached to limited detention, electronic surveillance or release for trial.

Another fundamental point of the reform concerns the granting of the definitive release of the intern. The latter may be awarded only after a trial release of at least two years and provided that the mental disorder that gave rise to the internment has improved sufficiently so that there is no reasonable reason to fear that the interned will commit further offences.

In order to professionalize the functioning and staff of the social protection commissions, it was decided that the sentencing courts would take all decisions related to the execution of the internment.

The last important point I would like to highlight is the place granted to the victim in the execution of the internment.

Until now, the victim of an offence whose perpetrator is interned was in complete ignorance of the manner of execution of the internment and did not have the opportunity to be heard by the Social Defense Commission.

The 1998 Laws on Conditional Release and the 2006 Law on the external legal status of persons sentenced to a deprivation of liberty sentence and the rights recognised to the victim in the manner of execution of the sentence granted victims the right to be informed of the different ways of execution of the sentence and to be heard about the conditions of granting one or more ways of execution directly affecting them.

If the perpetrator is interned, the victim is kept in total ignorance. This situation is unacceptable, and it is pleased that the government has proposed to adopt the same provisions for victims, whether the perpetrator is convicted or interned.

From now on, depending on how the internment is carried out, the victim will be informed and/or heard. However, it will be necessary to ensure that a real accompaniment is guaranteed. Ideally, this accompaniment should start from the reception in the police commissariats until the declaration of the internment. The victim must also be prepared for any possible contact that the court houses would take with her to inform her that she can be heard by the judge or the penalty enforcement court.

I also welcome the information that will be delivered to the victim by the judge who will pronounce the internment. From now on, if the judge decrees an internement, he will inform the parties of the execution and the manner of execution of that measure.

He will also have the obligation to inform the civil party of the possibilities of being heard in the context of the execution of the internment regarding the conditions which must be imposed in his interest. In this regard, it is essential that the victim is informed of the information that it may or may not request and of the limits within which its interests can be taken into account.

The bill that we are about to vote today – and that my party will adopt – is an undeniable step forward. However, this is only a first step. Legislative initiatives like these only make sense if there is certainty that the financial resources will be unlocked to ensure their feasibility.

Significant budgetary efforts have already been planned to increase the number of seats in social protection institutions as well as in the external care circuit. However, additional budgets will also be required to ensure monitoring of interned persons and to ensure the implementation of the rights recognized to victims under this project.

Colleagues, there are five speakers registered: Mr Muls, who will now speak, M Wathelet, Mr Schoofs, Mrs Lalieux and Mr Casaer. Afterwards, the Minister will have the word, followed by the discussion of the articles. If you allow me, I could only do the discussion of the articles, if I can say so, but I would like to finish this in its entirety.

Mr. Van Parys, it is not the custom to interrupt in a debate of a bill, the importance of which you have also emphasized.

After the full examination of this bill, I will suspend the assembly for a certain time. The evening meeting will then begin with the discussion of the draft law on combating judicial lag.

Let us take a look at the current situation. Now there are commissions for the protection of society or commissions for social protection – as you wish – which are composed of a chairman – that is a magistrates –, a psychiatrist and a lawyer. I have been fortunate – I call it fortune – to sit six years in the commission for the protection of the society of Vorst. This committee is competent for all interned persons within the district of Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde and Nijvel.

I would like to give a little anecdote, an example, about how that committee should work at this moment. That committee must calculate up to a penny what it can do and what the possibilities are to correctly bring justice to the interned. So, instead of allowing the many interned who have been placed in Merksplas to happen, at all costs thereof, from Merksplas to Vorst, the commission moves itself to Merksplas, to Bergen, to Doornik, and so on. That committee must leave at 8:00 in the morning and will return at 16:00 in the afternoon. The commissioners received a small fee of a few hundred francs. With a little luck, the commissioners were allowed to eat a warm meal in Merksplas in the afternoon with the cypriots. At the end of the meal, the secretary of the committee had to go around to ask for cents for the meal, for those who actually sit there a little bit as volunteers.

I have been able to establish for six years that in some cases the magistrate – magistrates are people who are somewhat ordinary – is there at certain moments with tears in the eyes when there is an interned before him whom he knows he can be helped, for whom there are treatments possible so that he can function back in society, but for whom you as a committee do not have that possibility because there is no one interested in visiting that interned in the institution, to take in a conversation, and so on.

Therefore, feelings of powerlessness and frustration arise. There also arises the feeling that interned persons, gently speaking, are treated as a stepmother, in so far as the interned persons have already been looked back.

Is this an indictment to the Minister of Justice? Is this an indictment to the former ministers of justice? No, it is a blame to all of us, society. After all, colleagues, we must honestly admit that the degree of development of a society is measured by the way it deals with the weakest in its midst. Internalists are among the weakest.

The feeling of the Commission Protection Society, to which I belonged – but I also spoke with colleagues from other committees – is that no one is interested in the interned.

When I entered the Chamber, I immediately began to ask the Minister questions about the interned. I asked twenty-five questions. I was happy to find out that my first idea – no one is interested in the interned – was not correct. After all, colleagues from the opposition and the majority and the Minister of Justice were also interested in the problem. Eventually something could move. We and a number of other colleagues, at some point in the newspaper, even received the title of “calm parliamentarians”.

What was the position of the government until a few months ago? The position of the government was to provide the interned first for resources and institutions. Only then will the statute be discussed.

That seemed to me in all my discouragement a little of the good too much. It seemed a little like the Greek calendar. I then, together with Mr. Borginon, submitted a bill that, like Mr. Verherstraeten and Mr. Van Parys did, advanced the committees that had already given an initial initiative to discuss a bill in Parliament.

Eventually, over the years – also the Minister pointed out, which I subsequently also outlined in my report – there was a substantial change in the amount of resources allocated to the interned. However, there was still the problem of the existing 1964 statute, which built on a 1930 law.

Then came the regrettable case in Liège, from which came out what has been a hole in the law for forty years, namely the fact that a council chamber or a court basically decides that someone is not accountable and must be interned. Then he appears before the Commission Protection Society, which in turn judges after a while and decides the only thing that it can then decide, namely that the person concerned has been healed.

Although the man has committed serious offences, the committee can only legally decide to release him. This has been a gap in the law for over 40 years. I am not throwing the stone at this Minister of Justice or the previous Ministers of Justice. It is a problem because our society was not interested and because there was no support so unfortunately a serious fact occurred.

The bill itself has a number of important strengths that I have just outlined in my report. One of those strength lines is to fill gaps in the law. Finally, a legal basis is provided for a number of good, practical applications that the various committees may have introduced contra legem – in fact I must say without any legal basis.

In addition, there is – and I have a little difficulty with the word – a professionalization of the judgment of interned persons. I find it difficult to use the word “professionalization” because it would be quite easy to get the impression that, because one is professionalizing, this means that it was formerly amateur. That was everything except the case. That would be a disapproval of all those who have worked very hard for those interned for years. I think I should pay tribute to all the presidents, secretaries, psychiatrists, lawyers and especially all the accompanyers who have made the Commissions for the Protection of Society work and have worked for the interned who would rather not exist for the rest of society because they would rather not know. I think we should pay tribute to those people and make it clear that, when we talk about professionalization, that is nothing more than a disapproval of the wonderful work they have done so far.

Mr. Speaker, you have repeatedly stated in newspaper articles that you are chairing a parliament with quite a few successors who prefer not to be too critical for fear of not being allowed to return or to have to leave. Allow me, as one of those successors who have been hit here, yet to be critical, and then from a majority party, to this bill.

Indeed, like Mr. Van Parys, the other Commissioners and the Minister of Justice, I have read the opinion of the High Council for Justice. I also read the letter from the League for Human Rights. I have to admit that I am sensitive to a number of points that are cited.

But – and there we differ in opinion, colleague Van Parys – I do not think that those criticisms are so much that we should suspend the discussion today. What I am convinced of is that in the future, if this law has its effect for some time, we will have to evaluate whether the choice for those criminal enforcement courts in the composition as provided in the draft law works properly and whether we would not better go to another composition or to another name, as the High Council for Justice says, because we could ultimately create the impression that one is only dealing with penalties, while ultimately one is also dealing with measures for interned persons.

This is also the point of expertise. Regarding the in-observation order, I think that in the future we will indeed have to look at whether the measures currently provided – in other words: the expertise that becomes mandatory, the accreditation of psychiatrists, the fact that a uniform rule for reporting will be imposed, as the minister has already told us in the past – are sufficient or insufficient. At that point, we must consider whether an inobservation order should not be considered.

The hearings were indeed very interesting and they indeed taught us a lot. And they were critical. For, colleague Van Parys, if we were to organize hearings where no one would be critical, it was indeed pointless to hold hearings. I remember one thing from the various interventions at the hearings. Several speakers have said that this bill is a positive given because it is working on the status of the interned. I remember something I think Professor Casselman said. He compared it a little to being a promoter of a student. What are they doing? One will first say what the positive points are, but in fact one is critical and one will look for the negative points, causing one to sometimes forget what the positive points are.

Mr. Heimans, from the Commission for the Protection of Society in Ghent, has also begun to raise ten positive points. He also approached – and more – critical points. But well, imagine he would come to say: it’s all perfect, it’s all beautiful, congratulations! We would no longer have any discussion. I think this would not benefit democracy.

Also in the League for Human Rights – I have comforted myself in the effort to contact those people after the letters we have received – the tint was that the design is a positive given. With certain points, the League disagrees because they can better in their vision. In the end, the League finds it a positive given.

Despite the fact that I am critical of the composition of those criminal enforcement courts and that I believe that somehow there should be a place for a psychiatrist, though not necessarily as a member with decision-making rights in a criminal enforcement court, I still stand here, colleagues, as a happy man.

Originally, only the idea lived that funds for interned people should be released. When I entered here, I was of the opinion that no one was interested in internals. Today it shows that very many are interested. In addition, the government provides substantial resources and the pilot projects that have been initiated are institutionalized. Beds are created. There is a clear link with the private sector. There is a clear distinction between high, middle and low risk. There are institutions. That is why I am a happy man.

Should we go further than the previous text? Maybe they could have gone further. A first, very important step has been taken. If the draft law only causes the broad layers of the population to realize that a number of people reside in institutions, not to mention prisons, which do not belong to them at all, but must be treated; if the society already has attention to it and wants to take a step to treat those people and try to engage in society, we have made a very big step forward and we can approve the draft law with a very safe mind.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. All the members of the parliament were applicants in this matter. The subject has been mentioned and discussed a lot. I have mentioned it myself many times, as well as my colleague Verherstraeten, when we talked about TAP in committee.

It must be acknowledged that we were especially quick in analyzing the case. by Mr. Van Parys spoke of the eight days and the sustained pace of discussions. Mr. Van Parys, you just forgot to recall the hearings we had the previous Tuesday on the extra-muros weekend.

I am not disturbed by such a pace. Nevertheless, when the Supreme Council of Justice, the League of Human Rights or the Association of Mental Disabled writes to us today, one or two days before our plenary statements, indicating that they would have liked to issue a more thorough, more thoughtful opinion, and accusing us of acting in precipitation, I think that we could have more fueled our work from these external opinions.

In my opinion, these opinions can really improve a text. By the way, the hearings we heard, though quick, showed how much a text could be optimized.

I would like to return to Mr. and Muls. It is true that when analyzing a text, it is necessary to highlight its positive and negative points. This is the analysis that I will try to do in a few minutes. Personally, I think that auditions should be used. It should be able to feed on it especially when the audited persons are unanimous on certain elements. For example, when they talked about the assistance of a psychiatrist when making a decision, they all, without exception, agreed on this point. The opinion of the Supreme Council of Justice that we have just received goes in the same direction.

Mr. Muls, this is true: we must grasp all the positive points that we have noted during the hearings. But it is also necessary to take into account the opinions issued to improve the text and refine the negative points, especially when the experts all agree on a point.

I try to look at this text as objectively as possible. Let us take the positive points first.

A project is submitted. I am delighted. We asked him; he is there. But that was not obvious. The theme of the interned, of the social defense is not specifically "seller". It is also not the most pleasant to approach and is hardly appreciated in the press. Nevertheless, these people exist; they are often part of a family.

These people have mental disabilities that result in difficult situations for both them and their family members. These people must also be recognized, they are part of our society. This may not be a very sexy idea and yet they deserve at least the same treatment as other citizens. I look forward to the existence of this project and the consideration, the appropriation by the political world of the subject of the interned and of the social defense.

Here is the second point that I wanted to emphasize. Mr. Muls, I will return to your intervention because the word "professionalization" may not be the most appropriate, the most appropriate, especially when it comes to interned. However, it is good that an institution takes care of the monitoring and the decision to internate, that people do this professionally, with profession, with experience, who will be able to add the files, professional experience and the diversity of situations they face, all feeding their decisions. In this sense, the “professionalization” aspect is entirely positive.

The third positive element I wanted to highlight is the “victims” section. This has already been discussed a lot in the analysis of the courts of enforcement of penalties. We have submitted amendments in this regard. The victim must be informed, it must be able to know what is happening to the person who caused him a harm, what penalty, what measure is imposed on him. Whether she is the victim of a person who is interned or imprisoned, it does not matter to her: she has experienced the same damage, the same prejudice, the same trauma and one must inform her in the same way. There is therefore an advance: ⁇ we could have done it directly at the TAP level, which would have saved a little time; but let us not shake our pleasure, let us show ourselves positive. This consideration of the victim is a good thing. I will not repeat the arguments developed by my colleague Jean-Pierre Malmendier but they go in the same direction.

An important clarification was made concerning persons who have already constituted a civil party but for whom there has not necessarily been a decision on the basis or the admissibility of the constitution of a civil party. During the extra-wall discussions of the Parliament, the Minister made a very important clarification. This increases the value of victims and allows them to be informed in a more comprehensive and faster manner.

However, if there are positive points, there are also negative points to emphasize. The first, and ⁇ the least important, concerns this name of “punishment court”. The Higher Council of Justice, which has just sent us its point of view, also emphasizes this: the word “punishment” is not appropriate. I think everyone agrees. These are measures, internment measures, and it might have been more appropriate to call them “tribunals for the enforcement of penalties and measures,” as the Supreme Council of Justice proposes.

However, this remains the title of the institution. The fact that these are professionals is, in my opinion, positive. It is true that one should not stop at words, but the term used was not ideal.

I come to the second point, not entirely negative, but which needs to be evaluated. I want to talk about the budget.

Everything mentioned in the text is positive. But as long as it will take about two years to be interned, things will not be able to work properly. As long as the deadlines remain as they are, the evaluation cannot be positive.

It is true that we have heard about new institutions in Antwerp and Ghent, if I am not mistaken, with purchases of planned land. However, it is still a matter of tomorrow. It is a first stone in the building. But in terms of budget and institutions, the measures envisaged in the framework of this law must be realised.

There is also the issue of staff. For example, ensuring that a person who leaves a social protection institution is continuously evaluated over a two-year period requires staff. The staff, who will ensure this monitoring, will have to work properly, be available to the person in question. We all know how much tracking requires an investment in terms of people, knowledge and time.

On many occasions, the chairs of the social defence committees have recalled the need to have sufficient personnel to ensure medical follow-up, whether at the beginning, during or after the internment This need for people and therefore for means is indispensable.

But in terms of budget, in addition to institutions and staff, there are obviously TAPs as such.

A number of penalties courts have been established. These courts will be given a little more competence. Thus, they will be called to deal with the files that, previously, were dealt with within the framework of the Conditional Release Commissions, which I look forward to. In addition, these new skills will be added to additional files in the field of social protection.

For example, the Social Defense Commission of Ghent handled more than 500 cases in 2005 and held 27 hearings; Forest’s handled more than 600 cases in 2006 during 40 hearings. The handling of such cases will now be added to the tasks of the penalty enforcement court.

Whether in terms of establishments—whether psychiatric attachments or social protection establishments—whether in terms of personnel, monitoring, working hours, skills, colossal resources are needed. And how much time will TAPs be able to devote to social defense?

I repeat it once again, we cannot afford not to ⁇ the goals set in a good law that includes a number of good principles. We must reach them. To do this, resources are necessary, or even indispensable.

The third negative element concerns the psychiatric component. If there was only one element to remember from my speech, it would be this one.

I will first address the budgetary aspect in connection with the previous point. As part of the hearings, the psychiatrists told us that they were doing therapeutic philanthropy. The words were pretty striking. But how do you want us to have the best psychiatrists, with the best experience in scientific and therapeutic terms, when their remuneration, which does not always correspond to their value, is paid to them late?

Again, a problem of means appears. In order to get the best psychiatrists possible and allow them to continue working within these social protection institutions, we need to ensure that they are paid on time and in a reasonable way.

Furthermore, the way they realize their psychiatric expertise is important. Sure, the text will contain a list of psychiatrists competent to determine whether a person possessed sufficient discernment at the time of the facts, but there is no uniformity in the practice of a psychiatric examination. We know that interning or imprisoning a person depends on a psychiatrist. However, all psychiatrists do not agree, they do not practice their expertise in the same way. This makes us somewhat frightened!

The absence of uniformity and the examination practiced by this or that psychiatrist are all elements that can refer to a criminal court and accompany the verdict of a sentence, a sanction that can go to imprisonment, or make dependent on social protection institutions and an internment. Frankly, this is not very reassuring.

Legal certainty and coherence are essential for the uniformization of the procedure and the practice of the expertise. Mr. Minister, if the list is undoubtedly a plus, we must inevitably move towards a uniformization of expert practice.

I repeat, Mr. Muls, hearings should not erase the whole positive aspect of a text. No to No! But they should not be completely neglected either. What is the purpose of using hearings other than using them? At least that’s what I learned! All of the people we interviewed told us that, as part of the social defence committees, the decision of the psychiatrist was important.

This intervention brought an undeniable more. Everyone has told us. As part of the opinion of the Supreme Council of Justice, this is repeated. The Human Rights League has repeated this. Everyone repeats it.

I reiterated the reasons invoked by the League of Human Rights: “... to be able to interpret a psychiatric report, to be able to judge a danger of recurrence, to be able to judge the placement or appropriate treatment, to be able to judge the effects of a treatment or mediation.”

Yes, these elements are present.

It is not as if the psychiatrists would no longer bring their stone to the understanding of the situation. I do not know whether some in this assembly followed the work or not, but it must be specified that the penalty enforcement court will not decide without professional expertise of multidisciplinary type at the beginning and with a constant contribution of psychiatrists in order to justify the decision. There would be no more than that!

Fortunately, but the opinions of the people hearing in the Justice Committee, the Supreme Council of Justice, the Human Rights League were given in knowledge of the cause: everyone knew what you just recalled. Nevertheless, everyone said what I just told you on the tribune: today, within the framework of the social defence committees, the expert is present and he is responsible for decision-making, along with the chairman of the social defence committee.

Everyone said it was a plus. They know your text. We were all able to find that these people had read your text, knew it undoubtedly, both the Supreme Council of Justice and the Human Rights League. Including this element that you have just added, which I have never denied and against which I have never tried to raise any opposition.

These people say nothing but what I just recalled: the contribution of the psychiatrist in the decision-making is fundamental. Everyone knew he would always be present, but insisted that he should be associated with decision-making. All these audited witnesses also knew that it would be inconceivable to be interned without a psychiatric report. Where are we going? Any internment can only occur accompanied by a psychiatric report – this is the least of things – which does not prevent the insistence of these experts.

Personally, I confess my inability, my lack of knowledge and experience to judge the importance of the assistance of a psychiatrist in decision-making. A priori, I would have said yes.

When I hear all the professionals who have been audited, when I read the opinion of the Supreme Council or that of the Human Rights League, they say the same thing. When these field people, those people who have experienced the situation, who live it on a daily basis, continue to tell us that the expert should be associated with decision-making, I say to myself that they cannot be mistaken. All of these could improve the situation.

Mr. Minister, I highlighted the positive aspects of this text and I also highlighted a number of more negative aspects, which may need to be revised or evaluated in the future.

I will end with a positive note saying that I am delighted that we have had – unfortunately a little too in the rush – a debate on social defence. I would have liked that we could see things a little deeper, ⁇ by organising additional hearings that could have brought other elements to the debate. But I find it quite positive that we have been able to discuss these social defence institutions.

We must not forget those social defence institutions that are truly waiting for improvements, which crumble under demands. When you know that it takes more than two years before you can find a place in Paifve or that it takes 18 months for Tournai, this is obviously not acceptable.

First of all, I would like to thank Mr. Muls for his excellent report. He spent a lot of time and work on this. This is highly appreciated.

I think that all the members of the committee and all those involved realized that there was urgent work to be done on the issue of the interned in Belgium. Over the past few months I have had the opportunity to visit a number of prisons. I have been able to see in the wings where interned persons are welcomed that those people are indeed in the forgotten pit of society. Historically, there is not always the necessary support provided to help those people in a good, adequate, efficient way.

However, the present bill, together with some measures taken over the past months and years to increase the support of psychiatrists and psychologists, has taken a step in the right direction. Initially, funds will be released to provide for a number of additional specialized centres. I am convinced that the new statute, with its positive and possibly less positive aspects, can be a lever to keep a plea for additional resources for the coming months and years as well.

Indeed, before we have a good, adequate and complete structure, there will still have to flow some water into the sea, but I think a step in the right direction has been taken.

Several colleagues have already shown in a balanced way that there are positive and ⁇ other points in the bill. It is important that the texts are there. I remember that here from various sides before the summer, following the Ait Oud dossier, it was said that we must urgently work on a defective statute, with the necessary legal guarantees, and so on. We will vote on that statute today. I find it a little difficult when I hear today certain colleagues, Mr. Van Parys and to a lesser extent Mr. Wathelet, say that during the meeting the majority has let the Schalke Minister of Justice take extra walls and have pushed the bill through the throat. I admit that the time between the hearing and the examination of the draft was ⁇ limited. Everyone will be able to determine this. This is an objective element.

But the claim that we were not able to speak freely during that treatment is not true. Fairness also requires us to acknowledge that we have amended certain points through an amendment, taking into account what was said during the hearing. Personally, together with the employee, I followed the texts that were made available to us during the hearing, one by one. When comments seemed worth putting into the debate, I did so. I have noticed that colleagues Muls, Giet, Borginon and others have also contributed to the debate.

Can Mr. Wathelet interrupt you for a moment?

I do not want to be misunderstood and I would like to confirm that we have been able to express ourselves.

This is the least of things!

It was “extra walls”, but we could talk.

That is the least of the things, Mr. Speaker!

There are also amendments.

Very interesting reflections were issued and sometimes challenged in a very relevant way. This work was designed by quality members.

You will eventually be heard.

I also think of the support provided to us by the two persons of the competent services of the FOD, who, with the necessary knowledge of matters, have worked very hard to prepare the text. Those persons have also always looked at the parallels with other legislation and examined point by point. I honestly have it especially difficult with the fact that they say that we have been allowed to do there, and so on. Let us also be honest. On Friday, between 16:00 and 19:00, no member of the opposition was present and on Saturday morning, one member of the opposition was present. Sorry, but the truth also has its rights. Everyone may have had good reasons not to be present during the discussion, but that is the truth that has its rights.

I see two fingers rising up, Mr Van Parys and Mr Schoofs.

It is very important what Mr. Casaer has said here. This is ⁇ strong. You need to know the following, Mr. Casaer. You were there and you know what it is about. There was an agreement made that we would stop the work after six or half seven in the quarter. There was a very explicit agreement in that sense.

Mr. Minister, you were not there!

Let Mr. Van Parys answer. Mr Van Parys, you have the word.

There was an agreement to stop the work between quarter to six and half seven. I myself left in Grobbendonk at fourteen for six, Mr. Verherstraeten left the property – he told me – at 18:00. Once we have disappeared, the chairman of the Socialist Party group begins to go around with the members of the committee to say that one would continue working. That is the truth, Mr. Casaer.

At least he did not ask me for that.

One minute, each in turn.

I will add something else, because you dare to intervene here in such a way. What you said to the CD&V group worker on Saturday morning in Grobbendonk borders the unbelievable. That was shameless! I would not have talked about it if you had not had the courage to say that the opposition had left the property at 4 p.m. I take several members as witnesses to this. You will not tell lies here in such a way!

What you said to the group worker in the morning borders the unbelievable!

Mr. Speaker, I will express it gently, I think Mr. Casaer has a selective memory regarding the facts of Friday afternoon. As colleague Van Parys says, colleague Verherstraeten has left at 16:00 as the last member of CD&V. Then I sat for another half hour to see what the majority would do. Of course, they never consult with me, but they told me that they would stop around half seven. I also ⁇ this to the President of the Commission, Ms. Taelman. Then it was said that it was said that it would continue until seven o’clock. I have actually seen Mr. Giet doing the round, but I don’t know what he asked for. That could be about the dinner in Mol, where one went to eat in a class restaurant. When the opposition—which also did not attend that dinner—was gone, the majority apparently could just go its way. I then told my co-worker that this was a joke show, that we were going to leave and that we didn’t go out for dinner that evening because it wasn’t a decent job anymore. At about seven o’clock I asked a few questions. Then I left the property myself because I did not want to participate in such a form of discussion of texts. Therefore, it is not true that the opposition was gone between 16 and 19 hours. No, I left at a quarter to seven. The last quarter of the hour – maybe it has gone to half eight, I don’t know it – apparently turned the opposition around to then be able to begin the move to Mol and the aperitif ⁇ .

Mr. Van Parys, I would like to remind you that at a certain point the question was asked to the chairman of the committee. The chairman then openly said that we were going to eat at eight o’clock and that we had to drive there for half an hour. That meant that we had to leave at 19.30. She suggested that we all get half an hour to get ready. In return, we had to stop at 7 a.m. If one doubts it or does not believe it, then one should ask the services for the bands. After all, everything is included.

Second, Mr. Van Parys, as regards your employee. We sat at the table with a few people. I think you should start listening to the others, the independent ones who sat with them at the table, to see who has been the wicked there.

between the Chairman and the Chairman of the Group. This is now what one gets with informal meetings in restaurants and hotels. If one thinks that there can be done parliamentary work in preparation for the real parliamentary work, for me not left. Then, however, everyone must realize that when there are subsequent considerations on this in a plenary session, on the course of such meetings, this is not acceptable. I can fully understand Mr. Van Parys in this. Either we come here as parliamentarians, as people who have to do parliamentary work, only meet in Parliament, with the necessary guarantees of publicity and so on, or one should not be allowed to comment here on the public tribune on informal meetings. After all, the end is sought.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that you ensure that such informal meetings are cancelled in the future. Such informal meetings are, in fact, more dangerous than beneficial for the opposition and for the majority.

I will close the incident, here. It is good that a caveat is also given about the way it is worked from time to time.

I did not know that this would give rise to so many emotions.

All I wanted to say is: stating that there is no serious work, I also do not find it serious, sorry. We did our best, in a serious and substantiated way, ...

... to hold, indeed on a day and a half, a discussion, in which – the honesty commands me to say that – everyone who was present was given the opportunity to submit amendments. Several members of the majority, including myself, have taken great advantage of this opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Deputy Prime Minister, dear colleagues, it is important to vote on this draft today and to emphasize the fact that we have finally been able to submit it today. Fortunately, we had this “green” weekend that allowed us to seriously move forward on this reform.

The [...]

Mr. Wathelet, you were invited to work. You know I am not like that. Let us not argue! I simply say that we have worked seriously, all together, so that this project can be voted today.

Share my view of things or not, but don’t binge at all!

This project is part of a democratic process that finally takes into account the most vulnerable and often forgotten part of the population of reforms, whether judicial or other. These people find themselves in a ⁇ difficult situation because they do not have sufficient discernment to realize the gravity of their actions.

This project is also part of a consistent model of execution of penalties and measures. And to say, dear colleagues, Mr. Wathelet, that at the beginning of the legislature, after conviction was a right to build. We were there!

In four years, all together, we have finally built a law relating to the external and internal rights of detainees, convicts, interners. In four years, we finally recognized these people as legal individuals. This had never been accomplished. So let’s not ruin our pleasure. It is important to remember it!

Remember, we were very far away from this four years ago. Our legislation was no longer adapted to criminal, criminal, psychiatric, medical, etc. developments. We have worked together on this issue. I recognize this joint work and recognize it with me, Mr. Wathelet.

This bill is the last missing piece of the puzzle that is thus completed without compromising the balance...

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to point out to Mrs. Lalieux that I have recognized the joint work.

Madame Loyola, I suppose you were present at the beginning of my speech. I do not have the habit of checking the presence of parliamentarians in the plenary to eventually reproach them later; it may be necessary to do so.

I said I was delighted to take this into consideration. I also said in my speech that these subjects were not easy. To say that there was nothing before is somewhat exaggerated.

Today, the social defence committees are working well. There are 620 cases processed in Forest, 580 cases in Ghent this year, with psychiatrists, lawyers.

Mr. Wathelet, I was not talking about people, I was talking about laws. I talked about the legislative work we have done to modernize laws that need to be improved, you said it and we say it in our turn. At the same time, it is the final stone of a building that we have built together for four years, in terms of convicted persons, internal status of convicted persons, external status of detainees, creation of the court of execution of sentences. This is what I was reminding today, as well as the fact that this is rather a collective work of the government and the parliament as a whole. I tried to answer the question and nothing more. During this legislature, there has always been an attempt to maintain a balance between the protection of society, the reintegration and the human treatment of persons once convicted.

Another important thing in this bill, as many people have pointed out, is the care network we are going to develop. In the bill, it is stated that there will be a real professional care network for interned persons. We will take the interned out of the psychiatric annexes of prisons, we will take them out of prisons, or even from closed centers, to place them in a network of care under the coordination of Public Health. Professionalization is a fundamental innovation.

This project is part of the logic of external status as it adds possibilities for social reintegration of interned persons through electronic surveillance, limited detention or other means, without forgetting to enhance by other means the protection of society, for example by granting a definitive release only after a trial release of at least two years and once the mental disorder has been sufficiently mitigated so that it no longer causes fear that the interned commits new criminal acts.

Finally, there is the victim’s place, like mr. Malmendier reminded him. The victim’s place is finally recognized: she will be informed, heard, she will be able to give her opinion on the different modes of execution of the measure. This is a very important evolution.

The last question you addressed concerns the powers transferred from the social protection commissions to the sentencing courts. There is, of course, the question of the denomination: “court of application of penalties” or “measures and penalties”. The law may always be amended to correspond more to the work performed by the appointed magistrates.

The transfer to the penalty enforcement courts clarifies the responsibility of each - and, first of all, that of the lawyer. He is there to defend his client and accompany him before a court that is no longer represented here, but under the control of the executive.

Like you, I’ve heard psychiatrists explain the importance of their presence in social defense commissions to the point that they wanted to participate in the decision. As you said during the committee, this can lead to confusion of roles, since to the role of expert psychiatrist are added those of caring psychiatrist and decision-making psychiatrist. This makes three hats for the same person. This leads to a risk of disresponsibility for the psychiatrist, because a caregiver will not necessarily have the same logic when he will have to release someone other than a psychiatrist who has established an expertise.

Responsibility for roles is important. In all mental health networks and social aid networks for the justified, we can hear that these people no longer want the role of decision maker. This will allow the judges to take their responsibilities. Furthermore, they will be trained and assisted either by psychologists or by criminologists who will be able to help them make a decision, but it will be taken by a magistrate anyway.

Furthermore, Mr. Wathelet, I wanted to say another word to you recently, but the President had not given me the word. At the time of the internment, it is the judge who makes the decision, not the psychiatrist. For the release, it will again be the magistrate who will make the decision and not the psychiatrist. In this way, everyone will be held accountable without the risk of confusion of roles. This will be beneficial both for the individual himself, who will be more confident in the psychiatrist who keeps him as interned than in the one who examines him as a therapist and caregiver.

I don’t want to get rid of mr. Wathelet, the reproach you made me, Madame, for not giving you the word.

Madame Lalieux, you develop the argument that the Minister had held before me in a previous exchange. Unlike you, I think that involving the psychiatrist in decision-making was just a real accountability.

Mr. Minister, you mentioned the greater responsibility of the magistrate who makes his decision alone, but I found it better to make the psychiatrist responsible when making the decision. I was also reinforced in my opinion by the hearings we organized. You quote people whose views differ, but we have not heard them. We might have had to organize a second series of hearings, but it was not possible.

This has been confirmed by other points of view. If I take back that of the League of Human Rights or that of the Supreme Council of Justice, there are differences between us in the sense that I think a real accountability requires associating them with the decision.

This is indeed another approach that I have allowed myself to defend in the hearing in the committee as well as in the plenary session today because it is corroborated and relayed by all the people we have heard.

Mr. Wathelet, we will therefore remain on two different approaches!

We look forward to voting for this latest reform that adds a stone to taking into account those who have been convicted or interned.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mrs. Deputy Prime Minister, I also thank Mr. Muls for his thorough and correct report.

Yesterday we all received a letter from the Supreme Council for Justice in the bus. The letter clearly shows that ⁇ too little time has been spent on this draft law. The Supreme Council for Justice itself says that it has not been able to get sufficiently acquainted with this draft law and has not had sufficient time to make the necessary comments on this subject. He even says that he can only answer in the form of questions to what was decided here, because this text is already coming to the plenary session. It is also my feeling – I may speak in Parliament somewhat from experience – that this text could not sufficiently sink and that criticism from various angles could not sufficiently be matched, through amendments. I regret that. That is the formal criticism of the High Council for Justice, but also the material, substantial criticism of the High Council speaks for itself.

I will not repeat everything extensively. Other opposition colleagues have already put enough of their money in the pocket.

The first point concerns, of course, the competence of the criminal enforcement courts, which have just entered into force and are already immediately tasked with them. That task is in fact not entirely aligned with their normal work, since the judgment of the interned will now be done exclusively by judges, and not by psychiatrists. I share the criticism of my colleagues from the opposition and the people from the workplace. In this case, the principle of multidisciplinarity, which is necessary in the assessment of interned persons, is wrongly dismissed. It is not just the judges who have to judge. In my opinion, people from the psychiatry and the medical world should also be able to contribute to the decisive judgment concerning the interned. Unfortunately, this principle is abandoned. This is a one-sided criminal assessment.

Ms. Lalieux spoke about the field of work and the fact that there is sufficient consensus there. However, she only looks at the French-speaking side, because it is clear that the people who work with interned on the Flemish side have complained about this and are concerned about it. It is a unilateral French-speaking approach to the matter. In Flanders, it is feared that the allocation of the interned to the right institution could be compromised by the fact that psychiatrists cannot make judgments.

Expertise, which has been hard-built on the Flemish side, is therefore potentially lost. Several colleagues, both from the majority and from the opposition, have said here that there are striking conditions in relation to interned persons. I am convinced, colleagues, that in this regard, through this bill, good things will also be achieved; let that also be noted. On the Flemish side, however, it is regrettable that one might be back down in terms of the expertise that has been hard-built in recent years.

The criticism of the Supreme Council for Justice, which we received this week in the bus, is therefore even more loud and striking for the majority that has promoted this draft by the committee, without it being able to sufficiently sink.

As regards the fact that there is no provision for an appeal, the following. More and more people are moving away from this principle. This is also seen, for example, in the procedure before the Council of State, with regard to party financing. Cassation has been made impossible in this regard. This was also intended to be introduced with regard to the divorce legislation and the fact that a marriage is permanently disrupted. Also here in this procedure, the appeal is abolished or not introduced at all, how should it be expressed?

I wonder if, in general, we should not even think about the possibility of vocation. Are we on the right path by eliminating this possibility more and more often and thus making it more and more a justice of first instance? This is not the way we will tackle the judicial backwardness. I do not understand why there is no appeal here.

Finally, I also asked questions about the budgetary implications. The Minister listed a number of things. I wonder if this will be sufficient. To be honest, I remain skeptical. I’m waiting to see how the design will eventually find its way in practice. The document of the High Council for Justice is the last extra-parliamentary document we have. There is also a return to this point. It warns about the shelters, the infrastructure and the resources in which it is provided because it might sometimes be too little. I have the letter here for me. It is also the first extra-parliamentary document that will be cited again when it turns out that in practice the law is dysfunctional due to all sorts of shortcomings that I have just listed.

Our decision is the following, colleagues. We are also concerned about the situation of the interned. These are people who are often in difficult situations. The bill seeks to remedy this, but we fear that it may not be the right way to reach a more humane treatment of the many files of interned persons. In the long run, they may end up in the right institutions; institutions in which they are treated not only as criminals but also as people with a mental disorder, who in many cases can heal and allow them to find their way back to society.

Colleagues, we are too skeptical – I say that to the end; you will have heard my criticism – to vote in favour of the bill. We will abstain from voting.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, first of all, I would like to thank all those who have expressed their views on this important bill and who have shown all their interest in the social defense and the fate of the psychiatric interned. But I would also like – and everyone here will understand it – to thank Mr. Specifically. Muls who brought us, in commission and today, his experience as a field professional.

As he said, it is not because we amend the 1930 law, a law to which amendments had already been made in 1964, that we must throw the baby with the bath water. Field professionals (magistrates, lawyers, psychiatrists) work in extremely difficult conditions. Today we must pay tribute to them. And by paying tribute to you, Mr. Muls, I want to pay tribute to all these men and women of everyday life.

Since the Dutroux case in 1996, our country has undertaken many reforms in the field of justice and security. In particular, the entire architecture of the execution of sentences has been profoundly changed. The Lejeune law has been radically changed. Conditional release commissions have been created; they have just been replaced by punishment courts. The internal and external status of the detainees has been developed. A genuine right of victims has been implemented in the context of the execution of sentences.

All these reforms primarily concerned the convicted. It was therefore necessary to extend the work started, in favour of the social defence sector, with the aim of protecting society while ensuring appropriate therapeutic support for perpetrators of crimes and crimes who suffer from a mental disorder and which pose a danger to society.

In his report, Mr. Muls very well recalled the arguments developed and the answers given in commission. I will not return therefore.

I would simply like to remind the few members who did not participate in our work that we wanted, with the modernization of the law of 1930, to take into account the evolution of society. We wanted to professionalize, but not in the negative sense of the term, the management of psychiatric internment. We wanted to entrust the matter to the courts of enforcement of penalties, to impose much more solid and multidisciplinary expertise, to establish a real external status for interned persons, to give victims rights (right to be informed, to be heard). We wanted to better prevent the risks of recurrence. I will give you an example among many others. But the history of our country’s judicial history has shown us that we need to intervene quickly in this matter.

It will no longer be possible to permanently release a psychiatric interned without trial release for at least two years, renewable.

This is the philosophy of the bill. Nevertheless, it would have remained only a beautiful mechanism without a reflection for decisions and investments for an integrated care circuit for psychiatric hospitals.

From the beginning of this legislature, I and you who have introduced bills, you who have interpelled me or questioned me, we have expressed our interest in the situation of these men and women recognized as incapable, irresponsible for their actions and who still inhabit our prisons. A little less than 1,000 people live daily in places where it is impossible to take proper care of them. It is completely illusory to provide the necessary care to these psychiatric interned in prison establishments.

What we have thus imagined, Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, is to build around the law a circuit of external care, which allows to better take into account these psychiatric interned, to better take into account their evolution, to prepare more for their reintegration and, thereby, to better prevent the risks of recurrence.

One chapter that has not been addressed during this debate concerns the construction of this care circuit. I give you a few elements.

Two specific social protection institutions were discussed, safe hospitals in the Flemish Community (Gand and Antwerp) which are scheduled to open in 2010. Of course, it is not by shaking fingers that such establishments are built. It existed in Wallonia, but not in Flanders. Two establishments are therefore planned. The existing places in Wallonia will be expanded, especially in Templeuve. Merksplas will receive an extension of 60 seats for interned persons; this is a short-term achievement.

From the beginning of this year 2007, in each court of appeal, a coordinator will be hired to facilitate cooperation between the justice and the psychiatric care sector.

Since the beginning of this year, we have granted a double financial incentive to healthcare institutions that host low-risk interners.

The pilot projects of Rekem, Bierbeek and Zelzate are now funded structurally. A special framework standard will be adopted for middle-risk interned in order to better ensure their management in psychiatric hospitals.

Nearly two hundred beds within the psychiatric care homes will be allocated to interned with a higher standard of management than that exists for other patients. Nine hundred other beds in protected homes will be opened. External care circuits related to Rekem and Tournai will be better funded.

In each of the twelve psychiatric annexes in the country, a multidisciplinary team is being engaged. It will consist of a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a social assistant, a psychiatric nurse, an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist, an educator. We have really worked on a sensible, extensive, professional care circuit that analyzes the therapeutic care of psychiatric hospitals. Is it sufficient? Per ⁇ not yet, but this is – many experts mentioned it in the note they submitted during their hearing in the Justice Committee – a considerable effort unprecedented in the history of our country’s social defense.

Certainly, we must face both positive and negative reviews, but experts have said, our country has never consented to such an effort to take into account the therapeutic care of psychiatric interns.

For law enforcement, we will also raise funds for care circuits: four new chambers for penalty enforcement courts; twelve psychologists will be hired specifically for the expertise component for interned. In some prisons, multidisciplinary teams, specialized in sexual crimes, will also be set up. We will eventually recruit coordinators to truly be the link between TAPs and healthcare institutions. This will allow us to determine the aptitude of the institutions to accommodate one or another intern.

This is, Mr. Speaker, what I wanted to clarify during this speech. I have a lot of respect for this law. It is the result of intense work, carried out in collaboration and in dialogue with field professionals. I heard them. I have visited institutions both in Belgium and abroad, including the Pinel Hospital in Quebec, which is a reference in the field.

This bill is the result of all this expertise gathered over many years and which has allowed to propose an entirely new structure in the field of social protection.

It will enable the weakest and most abandoned of us to benefit from a clear legal framework, a circuit of care adapted to their medical situation. This will make it easier to take victims into account. I have already mentioned the right to be heard, to be informed. I also think it will provide additional protection for our society against recurrence, which we really needed.

I would like to thank you for the work you have done on this subject.