Proposition 53K2502

Projet de loi modifiant le livre II, titre Ierter, du Code pénal.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Nov. 13, 2012

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

European Union framework decision criminal law terrorism

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) abstained from voting.
• Damien Thiéry (MR) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

Dec. 19, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, to say that I will soon have a verbal report, but that I will now refer to the written report.

Colleagues, terrorism legislation is always a delicate exercise. Nobody doubts that terrorism needs to be combated. The judiciary must have sufficient weapons to fight terrorism.

The legislation concerns the recruitment and incitement to terrorism, and the training of terrorists. The judiciary must also have sufficient resources to fight against them.

On the other hand, caution should also be taken, as the enforcement of the law can also affect a number of fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of religion or freedom of the press. In our opinion, the above-mentioned texts are not sufficiently accurately defined, thus enabling an unauthorised violation of those fundamental rights.

The Minister has argued in the committee that the present text transposes the Framework Directive correctly and accurately, but that is not in itself a guarantee for a sufficiently accurately formulated legislation.

Therefore, we have submitted three amendments in the committee to make the texts more precise. First, it criminalizes the dissemination of messages, regardless of whether or not they incite to commit terrorist crimes. That is, it does not matter whether or not the messages are directed to commit terrorist crimes. For us, that goes too far, because even if a message does not instruct you to commit crimes, you can still be prosecuted under the terrorism law. We submitted an amendment on this subject, but the majority did not agree.

Secondly, the purpose, namely the incitement to commit crimes, must also be manifest to us. Now that is too vague and there is too much room for interpretation. It had been appropriate that the word “manifest” had been added, but also with regard to that proposal, the committee has not followed us.

The third amendment concerned the concept of risk. One speaks of “a risk of committing crimes”, but that is also quite vague. What is a risk? The risk must be real for us. That is to say, one must always check whether the risk is real enough to be able to intervene. This text amendment was also not accepted.

For these reasons, we will not approve the bill. The risk of an unauthorized violation of a number of fundamental rights is, in our view, too great.

Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that Mr. Vanackere has an incredibly thoughtful view of the bill.

With this draft law, we ensure that acts or the cause for acts of terrorism can be punished more severely. In this way, we are implementing a European directive, which we should have implemented a few years ago. In this way, we also give the right signal to persons who engage in acts of terrorism or incite to acts of terrorism. That is why the draft law is presented today.