Proposition 53K0682

Projet de loi portant création d'un tribunal de la famille et de la jeunesse.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Sonja Becq
Ecolo Ronny Balcaen
Groen Stefaan Van Hecke
LE Christian Brotcorne
MR Marie-Christine Marghem
Open Vld Sabien Lahaye-Battheu

Submission date

Nov. 24, 2010

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

family law judicial reform judicial power juvenile court

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Abstained from voting

VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Alexandra Colen (VB) voted to adopt.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

July 19, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Several bills were joined together for the establishment of a youth and family court. The basic text for the discussion was the Bill No. 682 of Mr. Brotcorne, Mrs. Becq, Mr. Van Hecke, Mr. Balcaen, Mrs. Marghem and Mrs. Lahaye-Battheu, concerning the establishment of a family and youth court.

The following bills were joined together: the bills nrs 738, 739, 944 and 1224. The bill was also joined with the Bill No. 1652 amending several provisions concerning the right of minors to be heard by the judge, which was transmitted by the Senate. Amendments to the basic text were submitted by Mr. Brotcorne and Van Hecke, Mrs. Lahaye-Battheu, Mr. Maingain, Mr. Giet, Mrs. Déom, Mrs. Marghem and myself.

Your committee discussed this bill during its meetings of 26 January, 9 and 23 February, 16 and 30 March, 4, 10, 11 and 18 May and 8 June 2011. At its meeting on 26 January 2011, the committee considered it appropriate to obtain the opinion of the State Council on the present bill. The State Council issued its opinion on 28 March 2011. Following the opinion, the committee agreed to consider the proposal in its entirety in accordance with the bicameralism of Article 77 of the Constitution, in order to avoid any possible split that would compromise the coherence and readability of the whole.

The committee also decided to organise hearings. The following bodies were heard: the High Court of Justice, the Ordre des Barreaux francophones et germanophone, the Royal Association of Peace and Police Judges, the presidents of the courts of first instance of Antwerp and Neufchâteau, the Union francophone des Magistrats de la Jeunesse, the Union of Dutch-speaking Youth Magistrates, the councillors of the courts of appeal of Brussels and Gent, Mr Patrick Senaeve, professor at the KU Leuven, Mr Didier Pire, lecturer at the Université de Liège, the Interdisciplinary Project for the Optimisation of Separation Roads, the Federal Mediation Commission and the CAW Delta.

The reports of these hearings are annexed to this report.

The committee decided to seek the opinion of the College of Attorneys-General on the role of the Prosecutor’s Office in civil matters and on the consequences of any removal of communicable matters to the peacemakers. Subsequently, the committee requested additional clarifications from the College. Finally, the State Service for Child Benefit for Employees was asked for the advice to know what the possible impact would be of the text for the child benefit scheme.

During the introductory presentations on the basic text, the Bill No. 682 concerning the establishment of a family and juvenile court, the applicants argued that disputes that may arise within the same family are now being examined by different bodies. In view of this fragmentation of competence and for the purposes of transparency, harmonisation, simplification and cost reduction of judicial procedures, it is proposed to assign a single court to settle family disputes. This has been asked and discussed for a long time. The neighbors surrounding us invoke their positive experiences in this area. Moreover, centralization enables better accounting for sociological developments as the family structure evolves and becomes increasingly complex.

The submissions of this bill are intended to preferably resort to the forms of alternative dispute resolution. The subsequent discussions showed consensus on the need for alternative dispute resolution, but there was initially no agreement on the most appropriate way, mainly for practical and budgetary reasons.

In the end, the next solution was chosen. The secretary and the judge shall inform the parties about the possibility of mediation, reconciliation and any other forms of amicable settlement of conflicts and shall provide them with the necessary practical information. In matters relating to the place of residence of the children, parental responsibility, residence arrangements and maintenance obligations, the parties must appear personally. The court may invite the parties to choose mediation or, where possible, amicable settlement. Regarding the amicable settlement, it belongs to the appreciation of each chief of the corps to establish or not a chamber for amicable settlement within the youth and family court. The text aims to establish at the court of first instance a section entitled ‘Family and Youth Court’ consisting of three chambers, namely a family room, a youth room and a special room for the detained minors. In the framework of the amicable settlement, as mentioned, a room for amicable settlement could also be established.

The magistrates who will sit in the Family and Youth Court must, like the Prosecutor’s Office, have completed a specialization. The family court shall have jurisdiction over all family matters, namely the marriage systems, the urgent measures between spouses and cohabitants, divorce, parental responsibility, residence arrangements for the children, maintenance obligations, personal contact, descent, adoption, inheritance, settlement, distribution and so on.

During the discussion, it was decided not to give the new court jurisdiction for all forms of family criminal law, such as parental abduction. The committee concluded that it is better to maintain a strict separation between the civil and the criminal gap. Nor will the jurisdiction of the new court be extended to those who actually cohabit without children.

The assignment of family dispute resolution to the Family and Youth Court will result in some of the powers from the peace judges’ competence package being extended. In addition to its ordinary and exclusive powers, which will be extended, the Peace Judge will be assigned, in the long run, the powers package in relation to willson skills. During the discussion, it was also considered which other powers would best remain with the peace judge and which would better go to the family and youth court. The role of the prosecutor’s office in the peace judge was also studied.

The territorial jurisdiction of the family court has been developed in the interests of the child. Whenever a legal proceeding may potentially concern a minor, the court of the place of residence of the child, or at least that of his habitual residence, shall be competent. During the discussion, it was considered whether place of residence or place of habitual residence should be the main criterion. The committee decided to keep residence as the main criterion.

Furthermore, the bill provides for the anchoring of the principle of the so-called permanent saisine in order to facilitate access to justice. While the parties may invoke the highest urgency, that highest urgency will always be presumed to apply in a range of cases, namely the provisional measures between spouses and between legal cohabitants, the measures relating to parental responsibility, the regime of residence and the right of personal contact for the minor children, the maintenance obligations, international child abductions and so on.

The bill also provides for the harmonisation of the basic conditions relating to the performance of the duty to assist – Articles 221 and 223 of the Civil Code, and Article 1280 of the Judicial Code. The jurisdiction will be identical in appeal. Consequently, the bill aims to create a single file for the minor and his family.

The bill also provides for a single procedure for the hearing of the minor. The judge must officially invite every minor over 12 years of age, if the minor so wishes, to exercise his right of speech and this in matters which concern the minor. A minor under 12 years of age will be able to be heard by the judge if he wishes to resort to the assistance of a youth attorney. It is important that the younger person does not become a party in the dispute. The Senate Bill is fully integrated into the original text of the bill.

Each amendment shall include an evaluation clause and a transitional provision. The law will enter into force on 1 September 2013 to allow the judicial order time to organize itself. In the sixth year after its entry into force, the law will be reviewed. In particular, it examines the functioning and workload of the family court and the functioning of the established chambers for amicable settlement, as well as the desirability of establishing such a chamber in all courts and courts.

The amended articles adopted in the first reading will be submitted to a second reading at the meeting of 12 July 2011. During that meeting, the committee shall take note of the legislative technical note of the Legal Service of the Chamber. It agrees with the majority of the proposed corrections.

The entire bill is adopted, amended and legally improved, with 12 votes in favour and 2 abstentions.

I would like to conclude my report with special thanks for the services, which worked very quickly and very well.

Since I have read the entire report, I will only make a brief speech on behalf of my group.

The N-VA finds family and family important parts in our society. Unfortunately, families and families are not always saved from conflicts. When they are there, we need to provide a good tool to resolve them. The idea of a family court has been around for a long time. This happened in a previous legislature. In recent years, there has been a growing demand for family disputes to be settled by a single court. My group is therefore pleased that the bill on this subject can be adopted today in the plenary session.

We believe that with the establishment of the Family Court, our legal system, which needs to be thoroughly reformed, will be reoriented in the right direction. The family court contributes to the further specialization of the courts. Our legal system will be able to work more efficiently and be more transparent for every applicant. Especially in marital problems or family disputes, it means an absolute improvement for the applicant.

As of 1 September 2013, all family disputes will go to the same court. This will provide a solution to the fragmentation of the competence in family disputes across a wide range of courts.

The distribution of powers not only leads to conflicts of powers, but is incomprehensible and untransparent for the applicant, who is already often distracted when he is faced with family conflicts.

In order to improve the efficiency of the judiciary, the principle of one judge and one family file is also applied. From now on, the judge will create a single file in which all information relating to the family is recorded. If the parties should subsequently turn to the court again, they can go to the same judge, who already has knowledge of the entire family history. Once a case is pending before the family court, the case can also be brought again before that court by simple request, without having to repeat a number of formalities. Petitions and calls should no longer be submitted.

Magistrates and prosecutors will also need to undergo training so that they can be employed as specialists in this way. In the future, the parties will also need to be personally present in all disputes relating to the children. In this way, the judge will also get a better picture of the conflicts and will be able to use a more personal approach per case.

Children will also be heard more and there is a greater involvement of them. The truth comes from the child’s mouth. Children over the age of twelve will be automatically invited by the judge to be heard, if the child so wishes. Children under the age of twelve will be heard when they ask for it themselves.

The law on the family court will eventually be evaluated in the sixth year. I think that evaluation is absolutely necessary. A workload measurement is still lacking today, although it has been announced for years. In any case, the establishment of a juvenile court and a family court is necessary. Once there is a real workload measurement, it can be assessed how the transfer of powers between the court of first instance and the peace judge took place and what its impact is.

Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues for the good cooperation during the committee meetings. Therefore, I look at Mr. Brotcorne, who has worked a lot on the dossier.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, we are experiencing an important moment, that of the creation of the Family and Youth Court. We have been waiting for it for decades. All those who, near or far, are interested in the family, its evolution and the conflicts that unfortunately can break out there know that the situation proposed by justice was far from satisfying. In fact, instead of choosing the path of tranquilization, legal obstacles were multiplied. This resulted in conflicts of jurisdiction when spouses or cohabitants separated: "Do you appoint me before the court of first instance? Wait, I will call you before the judge of peace or before the court of the youth to better delay the consideration of the cause you have introduced!" That is why it was time to put order.

This is the great merit, I think, of the creation – within the court of first instance – of this family and youth chamber which, as our rapporteur has just recalled, is to group disputes. From now on, when a problem arises in a family, one will immediately and automatically know which authority to address, namely the court of first instance of its judicial district. It is simple and clear.

Regardless of the single place, procedures will be simplified so as to facilitate access to courts. The goal is, ultimately, to ⁇ transparency and to respond to these conflicts in a human and suitable way for our century.

I will not go into the details of the text. I will quickly address a few important points.

Thus, regardless of centralization in one place, a family will now be appointed a judge. As is already the case, a young man will be appointed a judge of the Youth Court. The urgency will no longer be the subject of dispute since, for the most frequent cases, the deemed urgency which no longer needs to be proven is provided in the text. This will make the economy of unnecessary procedural and competency debates.

But the most fundamental point of the reform we propose to the judiciary is the permanent appeal to the court. In doing so, if the court has been brought due to a problem in a family, the magistrates in charge of the case will remain competent to know about the development of that family. Everyone knows that if parents break up when their children are two or three years old, problems will inevitably arise when the children are ten years old or when it comes to them to undertake graduate or university studies. So we wanted to avoid coming back, every time, with a new procedure before a magistrates. From now on, the judge in question at the outset will remain competent and it will be enough to address a request to the register.

We have long stopped on the aspects that I will call “personal” that revolve around the family because they are essential and are the basis of the submission of the proposal.

However, I would not like to be silenced about the fact that this new family and youth room will be equally competent for all the patrimonial aspects that revolve around the family. God knows that they are sometimes numerous and important and that they can be a source of conflicts that are difficult to live!

Mr. Speaker, by voting on this bill, we will lay the first stone of this family court since it will be necessary for the Senate to seize this text to, ⁇ , send it back. We have conducted numerous hearings. On this occasion, the chiefs of bodies asked us for a certain time in order to be able to implement this new device, this revolution in the judicial world.

Furthermore, members of the Justice Committee are convinced that the implementation of this court must take place at the same time as a new legislation, on which we will work at the return, concerning the status of disabled, the most vulnerable persons of our society. The purpose is to entrust the management of conflicts concerning them to the peacekeepers. This is a form of re-balancing following the transfer of certain matters to the family court previously held by peace judges. Thus, tomorrow, certain matters falling within the jurisdiction of the courts of first instance will be transferred to the peace judges.

From then, it appeared to us that the September 2013 horizon was probably the most appropriate. This is a judicial return. This will allow judicial actors to prepare for this reform and all those who are interested in it or who will need to implement it to look at this new text.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, some believed at some point that this text would never come into being. Indeed, after its filing, the Justice Commission considered it necessary, legitimately and fortunately, it seems to me, to seek the opinion of the State Council. When this opinion came to us with relatively important and numerous remarks, many thought that it was the first-class burial of this text, that again, the family court would remain in the limbs and that this text would not be born.

Personally, I wanted to take the challenge and make voting before parliamentary holidays a real political goal. I considered it important to give a very clear signal to the actors on the ground and to the public opinion that the shared will of all the political groups had found a beginning of fulfillment. I am pleased that, with ⁇ 300 articles and more than 240 amendments later, a coherent and simplifying text is on the table and can be voted tomorrow, I imagine, with the greatest majority.

I am also pleased that the work that has been done is a collective work.

It was really a pleasure to work with you, Mrs. Becq, Mrs. Van Vaerenbergh, Mrs. Lahaye-Battheu, Mr. Van Hecke, Mrs. Déom.

Thank you, best colleagues, for the time you spent supporting me!

The [...]

by Mr. The president told me I forgot. He was volunteer, but he was volunteer.

I welcome an intense steering work that was only possible because you trusted me for the amendments submitted. We worked with confidence, which allowed us to reach this text and propose it for voting in the plenary session tomorrow.

This text is probably not perfect. We know that whenever we opened discussions, whole parts of the legislation were offered to us and that it might be possible to start a reflection. If we had done so, we would never have arrived at this tribune today. We would have had enormous construction works that could never have achieved. In particular, I think of the problem of alternative ways of resolving conflicts. It was important for us to give an important signal, to show that the legislator was more interested in these alternative modes of conflict resolution than in simple words, and that he was also trying to translate them into legislation and give them the means to exist.

That is why this text will find the possibility offered to the heads of corps to open amicable settlement chambers within their courts of first instance, at the level of their courts of appeal. But the Minister of Justice reminded us that we must work within the limits of the existing envelopes, that is, with the same material, financial or human resources.

Anyone who is head of body in a relatively large district, with a few magistrates at his disposal, if he is interested in these alternative modes of conflict resolution, will have the opportunity to engage in them. We planned to make an evaluation of these practices at the appropriate time.

Dear colleagues, this is a collective work of the Justice Committee, a work that has been made possible only with the active support of the Justice Office and the Office of the Secretary of State for Family Policy, Mr. by Wathelet.

At first, they were the bearers of the text but unfortunately, the allure of our political life did not allow the deposit of this text, unfinished by the way, before the fall of the government more than a year ago. The work was taken over and perfected by Parliament, which assumed its responsibilities after receiving the opinion of the State Council.

The submitted amendments, including my own amendments, which I have submitted in number, were only possible thanks to the full support of both cabinets, SPF Justice and some of its officials who attended our committee meetings, which is not common, and also thanks to the will and up-to-boutism – which I like to emphasize – of Mrs. Anne Desmarets who is at the tribune of our Assembly this afternoon and who has followed our work on behalf of the cabinet of Melchior Wathelet. I would like to not personally cite my collaborator Marc Vanoverstraeten for the academic, intellectual and all the moments he provided during this work that was very pleasant and very interesting. We can thank them and I hope that we will all be able to rejoice tomorrow when we vote on this evolution of our judicial law through the creation of this family and youth court.

Mrs. Somers, you are also thanked on behalf of everyone, just like Steven De Canck, or should I go over the whole line again?

In any case, it is important and also commonplace that we are here today with a proposal for the establishment of a family and youth court. The proposal came about thanks to a thorough preparation by the ministers, the cabinets and all those involved at that level. There were also a lot of consultations from the field of work, the magistrates and the lawyer profession. We held hearings here and there was a good cooperation. In the end, the various factions here agree that this text may be imperfect and may not be perfect, but in the end we are all behind the goal, in this case a family and youth court.

Thanks to the fairly intense collaboration of the last few months, we are now facing what is effectively called a historical moment. When I was still studying law – in the meantime centuries ago – people already talked about that family court. In the end, it turns out that for about thirty years we have been talking about grouping all the discussions and legal disputes that have to do with families and families. Why do we think this reform is important for the people? There will be greater transparency and hopefully fewer conflicts of competence and procedures. Due to the great simplification there is also a certain cost savings.

At present, we are dealing with complex situations and procedures. I may not have to give too many examples, but I will give one. If one is in a phase of conflict between spouses, one can start with urgent and provisional measures before the peace judge. You can appeal against it. In the meantime, one can initiate the divorce and from there go to the court of first instance. Meanwhile, one can want provisional measures, but not get an agreement on them and then go to the court in short litigation, still for the same situation. There may be a divorce by the court of first instance, with measures between the partners and the children and, if possible, a subsequent modification of those measures. If it is specifically about the children, for that change, one must go to the juvenile judge, another judge. When it comes to subsequent measures, one must go to the peace judge. This involves the juvenile judge, the peace judge, the court of first instance and the short-term proceedings, procedures that can be used against, side by side and mixed with each other, as it is formulated in our case, “to do the duel”.

In the end, we think and hope that through that single court, through the idea of one case and one judge – this may sometimes cause difficulties, if it does not click between that court and the parties – and at the same time by simplifying the procedures, we can make a serious step forward for the people. One court, the family court.

There has been some discussion about whether we will put that court at the level of first instance or at the level of the peace judge. These discussions have also taken place among ministers and cabinets in consultation with the various groups of peacekeepers and magistrates directly involved. Peace judges, in my opinion, correctly point out their role and their function as neighborhood judges, as judges with a low threshold. However, we have been able to establish that the level of first instance, where many procedures relating to family affairs and which can be brought together effectively take place in the offshore parcels, can provide for a stronger uniformity.

This also leads to a redistribution of duties between the peacekeeper and the first-instance judge. At the same time, we also listened to the opinions formulated by the Council of State, as well as the opinions of the legal profession itself and of judges and magistrates.

The distribution between peacekeepers and first-instance judges may be difficult there. Several colleagues also pointed out a workload measurement. What will this mean for the judges? We have heard several statements, including in the context of the hearing, where it was argued that it would involve in part a simplification and also a reduction of procedures, such that the workload does not necessarily have to be higher at the level of the family court itself or at the level of first instance. This is also one of the reasons why we ask for an evaluation. We also know that a workload measurement on its own may not be sufficient to create clarity, but in any case we also provide for the evaluation afterwards.

Procedures are uniform. We have also provided for the presumption of urgency or the obvious urgency. The saisine, the ability to continuously appeal to the court when there are changed circumstances, already existed with the juvenile judge, but not yet to the same extent in first instance.

There is also the specialization of the magistrates. I think this is an important element, where we do not always stand still enough. We asked questions about this at the time, including to the relevant magistrates in the window of the hearing. What is the content of the training they receive as magistrates for youth and for family? We can see that there is still a serious tooth attached. To the extent that it really goes to a specialization, that is important.

In addition to hoping that the number of similar procedures will decrease, we hope that this proposal will increase the quality and humanity of the procedures before the family court, even though we want to give a clear signal regarding alternative forms of conflict resolution. Our group and our party attach great importance to this.

However, it is not sufficient. We would also wish that the possibilities of mediation could be much more present, that the various possibilities of conflict resolution could be pushed forward much more strongly, from an assignment that can be given to a judge and also from the strengthening of those assignments extrajudicially.

However, we believe that this proposal contains important signals and anchor points in order to reach those different forms of alternative conflict resolution. This can be done, on the one hand, by informing people when they initiate a proceedings and, on the other hand, by giving the judge an important role in the opening session.

He must inform the people about the possibilities of attempting reconciliation in case of conflict, in addition to a procedure before the court, but then in the form of friendly settlements. It should also emphasize that mediation can also take place outside the court. We hope that the judges will really take that role.

We believe and hope that the judges, even when they have followed a specialization, when they know what mediation is and what added value this can mean, can do the necessary dispatching to lead people to a good conflict resolution. Not only at the beginning of the hearing, but also during the proceedings and at the request of the people themselves or at the request of the judge, possibilities may be provided to reach a mediated agreement or an amicable arrangement of agreement.

Although we are not in favour of a mandatory individual or collective mediation session, this text does not exclude that mediation services seek cooperation and agreements, including with courts, in order to be able to engage in a mediation task in some way close to the court. I would like to make a call to these services.

We are aware that when a judge is eligible for amicable settlements, this is free, while mediation will have to be paid. This remains a point of attention that we should take with us in the future if we believe in resolving conflicts in a way other than solely through the courts.

The right of hearing for minors is also an important step forward.

It has already been made clear that this proposal, which was discussed in the Senate, has been incorporated and integrated into the present proposal.

I would like to make two further comments that the present proposal did not initiate.

In the context of a family court – Mr. Van Hecke laughs – which ultimately pretends to take on all family disputes and ensure that justice is spoken and acted in a human way, we regret that only family disputes concerning children relating to people who are married or legally cohabitating can be reached by the family court.

Interconflicts between persons who actually cohabit and those who, if the persons concerned cohabit legally, would be dealt with by the family court, are not covered in the present bill. We regret that and do not understand it well, especially since in the case-law the actual situation of the factual cohabitants is taken into account and equalized.

I can draw up various elements and arguments. Are cohabitants not actually a family? Apparently, according to some, they only form a family when they have common children. That is what it is about. If the de facto cohabitants have common children, their case may be dealt with by the family court. If they do not have common children, their case cannot be brought before the family court. Therefore, when two people actually live together and each has their own child, their conflicts and the situations they experience cannot be dealt with by the family court.

We regret this, especially because at the time when family mediation was registered in the Judicial Code and its registration was repeated again in 2005, mediation was discussed, also for situations of factual cohabitants.

Another element that we regret, although we hope it can be adjusted in the future, is the fact that personal appearance, which is important when we want to give the judge a role to give mediation and alternative dispute resolution an opportunity, is only recorded when it comes to situations with children. However, it is not fixed and mandatory in the case of a divorce claim.

In this regard, we ask ourselves, by the way, what is the surplus value, when at the conscious moment it is decided that the personal appearance in divorce is not necessary. What is the added value of a lawyer or of going to court? What is the difference from an ordinary administrative procedure, when personal appearance is no longer necessary?

Finally, one member later pointed out to me that we do not know what earth shift this proposal brings with it.

There will indeed be a serious adjustment, including in the judicial world. In the end, however, we have predicted that this will only come into effect in 2013, so that one can argue about it.

In any case, we hope that thanks to this proposal we will know less conflicts and procedures. Ultimately, it should be the intention of a family court that compliance and enforcement of decisions can be made easier by having a good judicial administration and by finding solutions that may be left behind by the parties.

In any case, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this. I hope that in 2018 we can say that this has been a good thing.

For several years now, we have been discussing the creation of a family and youth court. This court is highly anticipated both by the judiciary and by the citizens. That is why we can look forward to the text that is proposed today, the advances that it will allow and the improvement that this remodel of our Civil Code and our Judicial Code will bring.

Nevertheless, as I will explain to you, some difficulties remain for my group; we have already had the opportunity to develop them during the work in committee.

The bill aims to simplify or attempt to simplify the procedure and harmonize it. Its objective is to group all matters that directly affect the family, a moving notion if any, in one and the same court and thus to allow persons facing a problem of family order to turn, almost by reflection, to this new court.

The centralization of all these disputes into a single court should allow, in the long run, to reduce the costs of proceedings, which is obviously a good thing for the justifiable. Furthermore, centralization also aims to improve the specialization of magistrates and public prosecutors in these family matters. Indeed, it is planned that, from now on, magistrates will have to undergo training within the Institute of Judicial Training before they can claim to sit or intervene in a family case, which is a real advance for my group.

The text favours alternative modes of conflict resolution, such as mediation and conciliation, which my group has always advocated. The creation within the family and youth court of conflict settlement chambers, so-called “friendly settlement chambers”, is therefore a significant advance. We also advocate that this should also be the case outside of family matters.

However, as we said in the committee, we believe that leaving the creation of such chambers to the judgment of the chiefs of corps creates two-speed justice and is discriminatory. We therefore hope that upon the entry into force of this text, a budget can be provided so that everyone can benefit from the processing of their case by these chambers, if they obviously want to.

We are also pleased that the text reinforces information on mediation and other modes of conflict resolution. This information must be provided by the judges; in fact, if the judges are expected to do so, a recent assessment of the Family Mediation Act shows that the parties are still too rarely sufficiently informed.

When it comes to the hearing of minors, this is also an essential theme for our group. It is important for us that minors have their word to say in the issues that concern them. Nevertheless, we believe that the text suffers from two difficulties.

On the one hand, the minor over 12 years of age is informed by mail that he can be heard at his request, by sending back a form attached to the mail. This referral of a form does not seem to be quite suitable for adolescents.

On the other hand, the judge is compelled to hear a minor under the age of 12 who makes the request. We found it more appropriate to provide for a possibility for the judge to refuse, under certain circumstances, on a special basis, to hear the child.

Unfortunately, the amendment we submitted was rejected. It seemed important to us, for example, if the judge found a risk of instrumentalization of the child, that he could refuse to hear him. Unfortunately, there will be nothing.

Transfer of competence: In order to group and reorganize the courts and courts with a view to the establishment of the Family and Youth Court, certain competences will be transferred from the peacekeepers to the Family and Youth Court; and vice versa, from the first instance court to the peacekeepers.

Nevertheless, these transfers stated in the bill proposal still seem too theoretical to us. Furthermore, many times we have been concerned that no concrete analysis of the workload of peacekeepers and the courts of first instance has been carried out in order to decide on the appropriateness of all these transfers. There is a risk of disrupting the current balance and possibly causing new difficulties in courts and courts, which obviously is not the will of the text; so we would have wanted to reduce this risk to the maximum.

If the depositaries of the bill are pleased that this reorganization of the labor burden, quite theoretical, constitutes an operation with a ⁇ neutral budgetary impact, my group and myself are not convinced. We would have preferred to clarify this point and analyze it more deeply.

But we are delighted, probably like Mrs. Becq and Mr. Becq. Van Hecke said that some of the submitted amendments were not adopted. I return to the point of the integration within the family and youth court of cohabitants de facto without children: the amendment was rejected, as Ms. Becq just specified.

It is important for us, in fact, to maintain a distinction between lifestyles which are choices made by citizens, individuals between marriage, legal cohabitation and de facto cohabitation. And we are convinced that it is necessary to keep their reason of being to these different choices of separate life by not embracing them as a similar whole.

What we feared when defining the notion of de facto cohabitation (in order to integrate it, it had to be defined) was to interfere with these individual freedoms, these life choices and that, ultimately, the legislator decides what a couple is and what an affective bond is, regardless of any official document that concrete it. When one marries, a voluntary official act concretizes the marriage; when one concludes a legal cohabitation, there is an official convention and procedure.

In the case of cohabitation, this is not the case. We – the legislator – would have to say that a couple is made up of two people living together and united by an affective bond. What does an affective connection mean? To specify a duration in this matter, for example, one year, 24 hours, two years, three months, four months, etc., seemed to us to impair individual freedoms. That is why we have pledged for the rejection of this amendment.

As regards the delegation of amounts, the text provides for not granting the delegation of amounts to the spouse found guilty of committing certain serious offences. The refusal of the delegation of amounts, due to the commission of certain criminal facts, may indeed prove to be a bad choice, as we have also stressed in the committee, because, in some cases, the parties still live together and that it is, therefore, the economic life of the household that could be disrupted.

Therefore, on behalf of the PS Group, we welcome the vote on this text. It is indeed an important step, expected for a very long time, but with the entry into force of this family and youth court, normally scheduled for September 1, 2013, we hope that we will not create false expectations, that this court will not remain an effect of announcement and that we will be able to give ourselves the human and budgetary resources of its policy.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, words such as fragmentation, centralization and unity have already been used in our debate many times and rightly, because today the establishment of the family court is discussed here. The family court must ensure that all family disputes are now dealt with by the same court and are not fragmented as they are today.

Mrs Becq has well outlined the path that a couple can take today to make decisions in the various stages of their breakup.

I would like to further comment on this path by example. I recently had a file in the hands of a couple with three children. The couple had begun with the peace judge to obtain a provisional settlement. The peace judge decided to suspend the judgment on the maintenance payment. It was about a father who lived in prison. The matter was appealed. The court of first instance ruled that maintenance must be paid, namely, 175 euros per month per child. Eventually, the divorce process has begun. In that context, the court of short-term proceedings also made a decision regarding the maintenance allowance. It has decided to pay up to 125 euros per child per month.

I give that example to show that for Belgians today it is unclear which court is competent and which judge when can make a judgment, and that one is also faced with very different judgments. After all, every judge is sovereign in his or her decision, with dissatisfaction and frustration from it.

It is very important that the long path that must be taken today will be shortened in the future by having to come before only one court.

The establishment of a family and youth court significantly improves the provision of justice services to the citizen. A division will be established at the Court of First Instance, which will accommodate all jurisdictions relating to family disputes and youth issues.

By entrusting all those disputes of the same family to a jurisdictional chamber, the procedural rules are harmonised, judgments are more uniform – remember the example I just gave –, referrals from one court to another are reduced and costs are reduced.

The focus is on greater coherence through the grouping of family powers, through simplicity and accessibility, and through the specialisation of seating magistrates and prosecutor magistrates for that court, who must undergo special training.

With a view to family and child-friendly solutions, it will work towards friendly settlement of disputes and mediation, allowing a case to be judged only in the final instance by the judge.

Colleagues, like others for me, I emphasize that important work has been done by the Cabinets of Minister De Clerck and Secretary of State Wathelet. I thank them, the ministers and their cabinet staff, for the good cooperation in the committee for many hours.

As Commissioners of the Justice Committee, we have been further informed through hearings. The experts who came to speak pointed to us on certain points, which inspired us to make changes to the text. I would like to express my thanks to all the magistrates and other scholars who have come to speak to us.

Finally, we have collegially completed the work in the committee, after which that final work is discussed here today and hopefully approved tomorrow.

I would like to briefly mention eight strength lines for our group of Open Vld and finally also give my own comment on the text.

The first force line of the proposal is that the Family and Youth Court will consist of three chambers. The Youth Chamber will take measures with regard to minors in a problematic educational situation and minors who have committed criminal offences or are mentally ill, and their parents. The second room, the specific room, will focus on the out-of-hand minors. The third and final chamber, the Family Chamber, shall take care of all civil jurisdiction or all civil disputes including the urgent procedures.

The second, important principle is, as has already been mentioned here several times, that for one family one file is created. All decisions related to one family will now be centralized in the same file. This has the advantage that the magistrate who has to judge will be able to immediately consider the entire history in his or her assessment.

A third important principle is that the high urgency, which now gives rise to a separate court, the court of court, will now only affect the applicable procedure. In the case of alleged high urgency, which is possible for all cases falling within the competence of the family court, the high urgency will have to be systematically demonstrated. In addition, there are cases of presumed hoodring, namely for those matters in which the high urgency will be automatically presumed, such as for the demand for a separate residence or for a scheme for the residence of the children.

I have noted in the committee that the language choice is quite rigorous, with the terms of supposed and invoked high urgency. It was then answered that it would be considered again, but ultimately those words remained in the law. In any case, I hope that the distinction between the persons invoked and the supposed high urgency will be sufficiently clear and will soon come into effect, not only among magistrates, but also among ordinary citizens who have a case pending.

A fourth important principle concerns territorial jurisdiction. The court of the place of residence of the minor or, in the absence of an official place of residence, the court of the place of habitual residence of the minor shall become the only territorial competent court.

A fifth important principle concerns personal appearance. We have already debated this in the framework of my bill to abolish the personal appearance in divorce. We have already said that it is important that parties are present at meetings where it comes to their children. Personal appearance is mandatory in all cases concerning the minor child.

Mediation and friendly settlement are strongly encouraged by the text. The possibility of establishing rooms for friendly settlement is legally anchored. This is very important for us; I will say a word about it later. It is also encouraged to resort to mediation. Parties should be notified of the possibility of mediation and should be informed of how, where and how they can initiate such mediation.

Hearing children was also an important topic of debate. Today only the juvenile judge is obliged to hear children from the age of twelve. The other judges, such as the peacekeeper and the court of court, may do so, but they are not obliged to do so. Therefore, this happens very little in these courts. The proposed text proposes that children concerned by a particular dispute, for example concerning parental responsibility or residence arrangements, should be heard every time they reach the age of twelve. If they are under twelve, they may be invited if they ask for it themselves or if the prosecutor's office or the court considers it necessary.

A final force line, colleagues, relates to the peacekeepers. The fact that we remove family disputes from the peacekeeping courts means that the peacekeepers had to have a new fulfillment of powers. Well, that fulfillment has come. I would like to emphasize once again that the peacekeepers in the framework of the procedures 223 often performed a good job. Furthermore, there was and is the advantage that one can discuss a particular family dispute with the peace judge, together with lawyers and parties, in a very short term. In my opinion, the peace judge is still the only judge with whom one can talk about the dispute within a period of eight or ten days in a council chamber and often find solutions. This is an important point of attention, which we should pay close attention to in the family courts. It should also be possible to personally attend the judge in the Chamber of Councils for a very short period of time to discuss a very tense situation and to find a solution.

These were some of the strength lines I wanted to mention. I decide, Mr. Speaker, with comments from Open Vld and myself on this important workpiece. For more than thirty years, the family court has been read in all sorts of government agreements and notes. Today, the concrete step is finally taken. The Open Vld has always been in favour of a centralized treatment of family affairs with attention to all aspects of those very specific procedures that affect a lot of people and children.

During the debate, we also spent a lot of time on our proposal, supported among others by the MR, to install chambers of friendly settlement. From now on, the chief of the corps will be given the opportunity to install chambers of amicable settlement, where the parties can go at any time – both before, at the beginning of and during the procedure – to have an agreement or close agreement acted or further drafted with the help of a specialized magistrates.

Those rooms of friendly settlement are very important. This text provides an incentive to this. I have said it several times in the committee and I want to repeat it here: some magistrates are already very innovative today. They see their role as tripartite, primarily judges-referencers. If they find that people are open to mediation, they refer to mediation. They are judges-senders, because they try to make agreements and turn them into judgments. If those two ways of settling a dispute fail, they are judges-evaluators and make a judgment based on all the arguments, answers and conclusions of the parties.

We should be grateful to these innovative judges. They inspired us for this text. Not only in Justice but also in other fields, the practice is often inspiring for us, the legislators. It ultimately ensures that in laws that were already in the streets, a number of important, new, but in practice already tested practices are recorded.

Other points we are enthusiastic about are the limitation of personal appearance, the uniformization of the hearing of minors and the establishment of youth lawyers.

Colleague Deom has already received several points of criticism. Open Vld also has a few points of criticism. In the committee, we have repeatedly accused that there was a great shortage and there is a lack of numbers in the discussion and handling of this important workpiece, both in terms of the workload and in particular the shift thereof, as well as at the budgetary level, about which there is still much uncertainty. What will be the result of the change of jurisdiction between peacekeepers and family court and what effect will this have on the courts of appeal? In some family matters, in the past and even now, one goes first to the peace judge, then to the first instance and then only to the court of appeal. The court of first instance can act as a kind of filter. With the creation of a family court one will skip a step. From the first-instance level, in case of contestation of the judgment, one will have to go immediately to the Court of Appeal. We ask ourselves whether this will not result in a possible overload of the court? We hope not, but it must be closely followed.

What is the actual cost of the operation? This has not really been answered. So we are enthusiastic, but nevertheless we have points of criticism.

Colleagues, Mr. Minister, after long hearings, discussions and animated discussions, but especially after working well together in the Justice Committee, we are finally here. The family court is in the hills. Now we hope that after the construction, which consists of the legislative work that we have delivered, also the further out- and finishing of the family court on the ground will go well and be on schedule.

I am pleased to see you among us. You have been here since this morning, which allows the cases relating to justice to pass with remarkable speed and efficiency. It is nice at the end of this session!

We will continue in this good consensus atmosphere by addressing this text that has been demanded by people of practice for over 30 years. I heard about it when I was studying at university. And here we succeed, despite the Belgian vicissitudes, to present a creative text that will finally correspond to the reality of our society and allow families to have a single interlocutor to solve their difficulties. The great principle that has been highlighted is the following: a child, a family; a case, a court.

What is the added value? This text only exists at the moment in our minds, since it has not yet been voted and will not come into force until September 1, 2013 – or sooner, if the King considers that the courts are able to absorb this novelty insofar as they have organized themselves well. If a married couple separates and their child is a minor, they apply to the court of first instance for divorce or separation. If the parents of a minor child are not married, they will go to the youth court to settle accommodation issues. If they are divorced and the child is adult, they will have to go before the peace judge to arbitrate the question of maintenance, for example if their child undertakes higher education. These three jurisdictional settlements create, in the long run, an extra cost of proceedings and aggravate the problems of these people, as they will have to find the judge to trust. In addition, magistrates find it difficult to appreciate the previous situation and therefore to understand the family history.

The great value of this text is to say that within the Court of First Instance, which in each district is located alongside the Court of Commerce and the Court of Labour, there are now four sections that respectively form the Civil Court where both property and citizenship issues as well as divorce and filiation issues are judged, the correctional court that judges crimes, the youth court that deals with minor children for unmarried couples, minor children who have moral or psychological problems in their family or minor children who have committed crimes and for which the judge of youth has dismissed and must apply to these minors penalties, as is done with adults. All these sections are now transformed, renovated with the creation of three new sections.

One of them is not really new since the youth court is still operational and will remain. Next to the youth court, we will somehow get out the family affairs that are at the civil court, today one of the sections of the court of first instance, and inject them into new family chambers and settle amicably. There will therefore be more sections within the court of first instance but, in reality, it is a concept. It is not something physical. They are simply magistrates who will leave the usual hearings of the civil court where both filiation, divorce, adoption as well as property and citizenship issues were dealt with to focus exclusively on family or family-generated problems and the financial consequences and on the children that separations may have.

I have forgotten a section within the court of first instance that will remain the same. I would like to remind you of the report. This is the Court of Application of Punishments that forms the fourth section.

Thus, we move from four sections to six sections, while retaining the same number of courts. These six sections will form four courts. Today it is the civil court that remains effective for everything concerning the problems of recovery of claims, citizenship and property of which I spoke. The new family and youth court will consist of three sections: the youth sections, the new family sections and the new amicable settlement section. The court of execution of penalties will remain the same as the correctional court.

You understand the conceptual advantage and effectiveness that have been put forward which, Mr. Minister, may create – I can’t help but tell you – some difficulties on the ground. Let me take an example that I know well, that of the Court of First Instance of Tournai. Within a decade, it will be deployed on different sites. A problem will then arise at the level of the youth transplant, which is at the other end of the city compared to the civil transplant.

It may be necessary to return to it, we will see this at the return; I do not want to overload your arms already filled not with gifts but with problems for a thing that will come in its time, to which it is necessary to prepare and which in any case, text to support, will come into effect at best on September 1, 2013, leaving thus the courts of first instance the opportunity to organize themselves. In this context, several very important points should be emphasized and I will conclude my presentation with this.

The flagship element is the amicable settlement chamber which will be created according to the courts at the initiative of the chief of corps. The guiding idea is that in any conflict, there is always a possibility to find an agreement and that magistrates with their vocation to be above the mess, to represent a power, who are able by their experience to help find an agreement, can have an essential function in the role of conciliation.

This conciliation is common to all magistrates, they can use it but it is rarely and especially by the peacekeepers, in our framework, for articles 221 and 223 of the Civil Code, that is, urgent and provisional measures and obligations relating to household charges, all obligations arising from marriage that would not be respected by one of the spouses unless a final separation occurs. Cantonal magistrates are accustomed to this conciliation, civil magistrates much less.

However, thanks to this text, it can be seen that as soon as a couple wishes to have a family problem evoked before the Youth and Family Court, it is a matter that the secretary immediately informs that couple of all existing possibilities of mediation and conciliation, outside the court. When the magistrate meets the couple for the first time, he also has the faculty, if he has the impression that the atmosphere is positive, to try to find agreements in whole or in part on issues submitted to him by that couple.

And if he deems it appropriate, at any time during the procedure, the magistrate may refer the parties before the settlement chamber to the amicable where a magistrate will sit who will hear the parties confidentially in the chamber of the council, who will note the partial or overall agreements reached by the parties and who will give publicity to these agreements only if they are fulfilled and can advance the case. If it is partial agreements, he will refer for the surplus to the family court which will continue the case and which may eventually, at the request of the parties, return the case again, if he feels that the atmosphere is positive, to the amicable settlement chamber or any other external mediator.

We believe that this is a very important element that will give a famous blow to this whole chapter of mediation that we included in the seventh part of the Judicial Code and which is unfortunately too little used to this day. It is with the help of the magistrates, with their active collaboration, knowing that they will be specially trained for these tasks, that we think we can get there and resolve in complete confidentiality and in the calm of family conflicts that are sometimes and even often very painful, as experience shows us.

The second key element is the hearing of minors. We were faced with an embryonic right to hear and participate minors in the judicial process. Yet, how many times do children not find themselves in the middle of the play of quills without being asked their opinion. How many times have I not heard—colleagues present in this auditorium will be able to confirm my words—young people under the age of 12 who wanted to be heard and who could not be heard because it was not a hearing within the framework of the Youth Court?

Today, it is recalled that the 15-year-old minor is heard under oath, which means that before that the children are not. That said, it is not because they cannot be. The principle recalled in the law – this is very important – is that any minor who asks for it can be heard. And if he does not have the discernment, the magistrate who has heard him will simply indicate it at the bottom of the minutes of the hearing.

If the minor wishes to be heard, the judge cannot object. The same applies when the request comes from the public prosecutor. It is only when the parties, namely the parents, make the request that the magistrate can object to it in a reasoned manner in order to avoid any instrumentalization of the minor in the context of the conflict that opposes his parents.

Before I finish, I would like to pause a moment on an important element, namely the transfer of skills. Madame Deom, I did some sort of scanning the text of the law. This allowed me to see what transfers are being carried out and to which room. It is a certain fact that, in the family and youth court, the youth court is called to retain very little competence since it will still be competent in matters covered by protection law, i.e. when minors must be subject to placement measures or in case of dismissal of the youth court in favor of the youth court which, in this case, will be able to apply criminal sanctions in case of criminal offences. All other matters, including those entrusted to peace justice, will be transferred, conceptually, plasticly to the family rooms.

Of course, the above-mentioned chambers will be led by magistrates who are now sitting in the civil, in the youth court. They are therefore trained magistrates surrounded by members of the prosecutor’s office who are also trained. This contagion between youth magistrates and first-instance magistrates dealing with family matters within the framework of the civil court will contribute to the creation of a true family court where the unity of time, place and action will be respected.

Mr is very enthusiastic, because he has been asking for years. We worked with enthusiasm under the leadership of the fish-pilot, Mr. by Christian Brotcorne. We managed to reach agreements on 99% of requests. The rest will be evaluated, this is the last proposal that I will emphasize, within the six years after the establishment of this new court, which will allow us to further refine its major principles.

Indeed, this bill contains a lot of good things. My colleagues have already mentioned it, I will not repeat it all.

It is the duty of the opposition to oppose. It’s a lousy job, but somebody’s got to do it.

We have doubts about a number of things. I am especially concerned with the feasibility. First of all, we are with a government in ongoing affairs, which we do not think can do everything that is on paper here.

There has also not yet been a decision to reform the judicial landscape and there has not been a workload measurement in the courts.

However, that should not prevent Parliament from taking initiatives, but yet it is a little work in the air empty, it has been a little plotted in a vacuum. There has been a lot of discourse in the committee. It took a long time to get these things in line.

There is also a lack of budgetary support for what is currently under way. These are very fundamental considerations, but as long as there is hope, there is life.

A first point of criticism is that it can be very difficult to execute.

A second point of criticism is that the peacekeeper, who once together with the judge of first instance was more or less the pillar of personal and family law, now disappears as a neighboring judge.

We regret that a lot of expertise is lost. It will have to be rebuilt within the family and youth court. It is true that it has been attempted to capture that with a number of measures, but the peace judge disappears for a large part from the picture. We find this regrettable, especially for a matter such as family law, where families lived physically close to a peace court and had to find the way to such an institution very quickly.

These are our fundamental concerns.

I ⁇ don’t want to throw a stone at the insiders. A number of important cliffs will ⁇ be bypassed. The benefits have already been mentioned here.

The fact that almost everything is centralized is a very positive point. Another consideration we make, however, is one of a community nature. Thanks to the support of the Flemish Interest in the commission, however, it is worse to prevent. I would like to thank my colleagues for informing me about this in time.

In the new situation, it is still a fact that part of the matter from the peace courts in the outskirts around Brussels will go to the court of first instance in Brussels. In itself, this does not have to be a catastrophe, because the Dutch speakers of course will choose the Dutch-speaking court and the French-speaking court.

The peacekeepers in the outskirts around Brussels are losing some of their powers. It is there, in those municipalities, that the Dutch-speaking character must be preserved. This is the third additional objection that we raise against the Family and Youth Court.

We will abstain from voting. We are also waiting for the evaluation. It will not come into effect until 2018, as the law will not enter into force until 2013. Per ⁇ there will be another government with full authority, which may see some things differently. This is not yet known. It will be a different majority that will decide other matters. We therefore make strong reservations to this law, without, of course, wanting to fool the meritorious work of the applicants. That would be intellectually unfair.

Mr President, colleagues and colleagues,...

The [...]

Mr. Minister, we still agree well and if you accept our amendment, we will agree much better.

Many colleagues have recalled that history is being written today. We read and hear everywhere that there has been talk about the establishment of a family court for more than thirty years. I was not there thirty years ago when the first rumors circulated, I was little interested in family courts at the time. Apparently, a very long way has been taken to take this step. Per ⁇ it is due to the fact that we have a government in ongoing affairs – that is the contradiction – and thus not a full-fledged government that constantly sends bills to the Justice Committee, so that the committee has been able to take the time to calmly and thoroughly deal with the bills that were prepared by the cabinets. The work could be done beyond the boundaries of majority and opposition, in a very constructive way. I want to thank my colleagues for this.

My colleagues, of course, are very pleased with the text. Now almost all disputes in the family sphere will be handled by a single court. It has thus been done with the labyrinth of procedures before various courts with often conflicting decisions as a result and often very many appeals against all those decisions at the different levels. That, of course, made it very complicated. I remember, for example, the testimony of a magistrate at the Court of Appeal, who said that if they received a case at the Court of Appeal and saw all the decisions already made by peacekeepers, juvenile courts and short-term judges with often even vocational decisions, it really becomes a slump to get out of it.

The advantage of this design is an increase in the efficiency of resolving such disputes. We will also create time savings, which will benefit the prosecutor. Specialization can also be sought in the magistrates.

Other members also stressed that the attention to mediation, mediation that has been around for a very long time, is a very positive point. In practice, however, it was little applied. The law is also an opportunity to work on a change of mentality, not only among the lawyers but also among the magistrates. In this way, it can be examined whether as many cases as possible can be settled through mediation and alternative dispute resolution.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, many members have already detailed what the law means. I will not repeat their words. I just want to return to one particular point. Some members will already know what it is about. It is about the jurisdiction of the family court.

The jurisdiction of the family court is limited to the spouses and the legal cohabitants. It does not apply to those actually living together who do not have children.

We have discussed this issue extensively in the committee. We have written and submitted amendments. We also submitted sub-amendments. However, there was no majority in the committee to reach a comparison, which is very unfortunate.

After all, the discussions that may arise in a couple that actually lives together will often be of the same nature as the discussions in married or legally living together. These are discussions about who can still live in the common home when the couple is separated or about who can use the only car that the family or the family has. Thus, it is the material discussions that a judge must bow to. Such discussions are the same in married and unmarried.

Therefore, it seems to us much more efficient that the judge is given the duties on the basis of a material competence. The nature of the discussion is much more important than the status of the couple.

The arrangement that has now been drawn up can lead to a number of very bizarre rules. I would like to give only a few examples of what we will experience in practice when it comes to the designation of the competent court.

First, in fact cohabitants with children go to the family court, while in fact cohabitants who do not have children together do not go to the family court.

Second, in fact, cohabitants whose wife is eight months pregnant will not be able to go to the family court in case of a dispute. If the lady pleases a few months later, the family judge will be competent. Where is the logic?

Third, persons who legally cohabit, do not have a relationship and do not have children may go to the family court. I take as an example brothers who live together and have made an agreement. The classic example is the priest and his daughter, if I can call them so, who have concluded a contract of legal cohabitation. Their discussions will come before the family court, although they are not actually a family or family. In fact, cohabitants who live together in a relationship, on the other hand, will not come before the family court.

This is not coherent. That is not logical. We have submitted an amendment to the committee. We will submit it again in the plenary session to correct this anomaly. I know that there have been very fierce discussions about this. What we propose is also not new, Mrs. Deom, we have had that discussion. You are afraid of the definition. Of course, it is not up to the legislator to define what a relationship is, but we have taken a text that already exists in the Civil Code, in the articles on adoption. We only missed the three-year term. That is the time required for actual cohabitants to be eligible for adoption.

We use the definition that already exists there. It is a definition that already exists in other legislation. Ms. Becq gave examples of this in the committee. The discussion has been held. We submit the amendment again. We hope that we will be able to persuade our colleagues to approve the amendment. We do not have many illusions, but we will try. Who knows, in the six-year review, six years after the entry into force, we may come to the conclusion that it might have been good to put the de facto cohabitants also under the jurisdiction of the family court.

Let us not forget, it is ultimately only about the appointment of the competent court. The amendment does not change the law in substance. We do not change the statute. We only choose which court is competent.

Colleagues, despite that anomaly, we will surely approve the proposal, because there are enormous many good elements, as many colleagues before me have shown. Before concluding, I would also like to express my gratitude for the good cooperation in the committee among the colleagues, with the many employees who worked on it, but also with the members of the cabinet, who were always present, and the administration. They made it possible for us to come up with such an important law. I think it is a milestone in the history of the judicial organization.

Mr. Speaker, you will not blame me that I begin by thanking everyone and of course also the submitters of the proposal. It was achieved on the basis of many efforts. I thank everyone and in particular the staff of the Cabinet of colleague Melchior Wathelet and my staff of the Cabinet of Justice who have worked on it.

Today, a number of historical cases are dealt with in justice. There are issues that are entirely a parliamentary initiative. Drafts are passed, but there are also examples of perfect cooperation, with the government preparing an initiative that has been taken over by the members of Parliament. Everything was finished together. The case of the Family Court is an example of a perfect cooperation between the government and Parliament.

I would like to thank the Justice Committee for its work during the many meetings and hearings. I think an important step is being taken here.

I advocate for a reform of the entire judicial landscape. It has always been intended that the family court would have a special place in this. The step that is being taken today is important to renew and modernise Justice. The family court is definitely a story to defend. We hope it can be perfectly implemented next year.

The complexity of the dossiers increases, the number of dossiers increases. Anyone who is in the practice of youth law knows that it is becoming increasingly complex and comprehensive. More and more files are being submitted. Family law does not only deal with Belgian law, it must also be considered more and more in the European and international context. Everything evolves, everything interferes with each other. We must organize our Justice so that it can accommodate these evolutions. The family court is an obvious response to these developments.

The Family Court is a way to organize our Justice in a contemporary way, and it also allows for more specialization.

I think everyone agrees that we need much more specialization in justice. The family and youth issues require specialization. You must be prepared to follow the file. A single file, a single court: access for the justiciable must be easy. In my opinion, this is a very contemporary way of organizing this justice. Specialization is a key element.

Furthermore, a comprehensive approach, the fact that the entire dossier is discussed and not a part of it within a limited competence, is also a key element.

It is clear that jurisprudence has an evolving aspect. Things evolve in a family; you can follow them. Successive interventions may be required in one and the same file.

I fall for a piece in repetition, but also mediation has always been central in the reform of the judicial landscape. This is stated very explicitly here. I think that this today reaffirms that we must absolutely continue to invest in mediation by all means. In this way, the efficiency of justice can be confirmed.

So this is an important and a bit of a historical moment. A lot of important files are being handled. The Family Court is a symbolic file for the future of Justice.

In the government, of course, together with colleague Melchior Wathelet, I assume the full responsibility to prepare the implementation of this law absolutely and with all means. Initially we – I don’t know if we will be there again in autumn – will be your interpreter for the Senate Justice Committee to defend these texts. Hopefully the text will remain unchanged, otherwise with a few minor amendments, after which the draft will be again scheduled in this assembly to finally approve it. Thus, we can start with what young people and people with family ties are entitled to, in this case one competent, specialized, good court, the family court, which we will set up by 1 September 2013.

I thank you for your cooperation.

July 17, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I give a brief report from my bank, in consultation with my colleague, Mrs. Meire.

The draft as amended by the Senate was discussed in the Justice Committee on Tuesday 9 July last. After the introduction by the Minister, during the general discussion, there were protests by colleagues De Clerck, Brotcorne, Lahssaini, Van Hecke, Meire, Van Vaerenbergh and myself. Words such as “finally”, “satisfied”, “very positive” and “very important to the families” were used frequently.

Furthermore, a number of colleagues found the amendments approved by the Senate – I quote – “not always successful” and commented on the entry into force.

During the article-by-article discussion, more than 300 amendments were discussed, mainly by colleague Brotcorne, which make improvements and clarifications.

I will limit myself to the discussions we held on two topics. First, the rooms for friendly settlement. As regards the amicable settlement chambers, separate provisions on the training of magistrates were deleted, as the training courses are already included in Article 259sexies of the Judicial Code. For those same rooms, it was ensured that they were installed at the level of the courts.

In the field of the material powers of the family court, the discussion about the actual cohabitants is again unfolding. Colleague Becq defended her amendment to, I quote, “include claims of couples relating to the exercise of their rights or relating to their property, as well as the provisional measures relating to them, under the jurisdiction of the family court”. She was supported in this, among others, by colleagues Brotcorne and Van Hecke, while colleagues Marghem, Meire and I had a different opinion.

In the discussion, the Minister pointed out that it considers important that the solution does not lead to disputes of competence. There were also comments on the definition, which would not be entirely conclusive. Eventually, it was decided not to include the actual spouses without children under the jurisdiction of the family courts.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, my colleague Sabien Lahaye-Battheu presented to you the amendments concerning the notion of couple and the extension of the conciliation chamber. As discussions on the substance have already occurred during the first analysis of the text by the House, I will limit myself to quickly present the essential amendments and in particular those concerning the formation of the public prosecutor and the liquidation-sharing.

The draft law was amended to provide that the functions of the public prosecution at the family and youth court are exercised by one or more prosecutors who have completed specialized training, organized by the Institute for Judicial Training.

In order to alleviate any difficulty, it is provided that, in exceptional circumstances and for the sake of a good administration of justice, the Prosecutor of the King may appoint an untrained Magistrate, only for a specified period and with a certain motivation. A transitional right is also provided for magistrates who have been exercising as magistrates in family law matters for at least three years. Magistrates who benefit from the training exemption must undergo continuous training and must prove their specialized training.

The Minister notes that the proof of specialized training will be more complex to establish. Some members then point out that since the entry into force of the law is not immediate, the application for training should not pose major difficulties. The amendments are justified by the fact that specialized training is considered essential everywhere. Matters related to the settlement-sharing have been reinserted into the competence of the Family and Youth Court. The amendments in this sense are justified by the fact that the essential purpose of the establishment of a family and youth court in Belgium tends to make family litigation more coherent and to ensure that competences are less dispersed, with liquidation and sharing, in the vast majority of cases, linked to family relations.

It seemed to the committee that removing the liquidations-shares from the family and youth court would lead to complex situations and would go against the will of the project authors. An amendment concerning claims relating to a child whose filiation is established only in relation to one of the parents is also adopted.

A group submitted an amendment to reintroduce the right to be assisted by a lawyer or to be accompanied by a trusted person. A member of the committee notes that the absence of explicit mention of the right to be assisted by a lawyer does not mean that this right does not exist. In accordance with the general principles, everyone has the right to be assisted by a lawyer. This amendment will be rejected.

Several technical and compliance corrections to the text have also been adopted.

The bill was eventually adopted by fourteen votes for and one abstention.

Mr. Speaker, after the reports presented here, I would like to emphasize, on behalf of colleague Brotcorne and myself, that we are very pleased that now, two years after the voting in the House, we have reached this point, after the initiative we have been able to take from Parliament during the period of ongoing affairs, thanks to the efforts of then Secretary of State Wathelet and Minister De Clerck.

After many open discussions in the House and then in the Senate, I would like to emphasize that I am very happy that together we have found a consensus on what Minister Turtelboom also calls a very important reform, in addition to the reform of the judicial landscape.