Proposition 53K2604

Projet de loi modifiant le Code judiciaire et la loi du 17 mai 2006 relative au statut juridique externe des personnes condamnées à une peine privative de liberté et aux droits reconnus à la victime dans le cadre des modalités d'exécution de la peine.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Jan. 16, 2013

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

prisoner judicial proceedings criminal procedure penalty carrying out of sentence release on licence

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo N-VA LDD VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Bernard Clerfayt (MR) voted to reject.
• Peter Luykx (CD&V) voted to reject.
• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.
• Damien Thiéry (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 31, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I will not read my report traditionally, but I would like to point out that the literature is recommended for those who draw conclusions too quickly.

There was a thorough debate. What does the amendment to the law mean? On the one hand, a piece of material law was amended and on the other hand, a piece of procedural law.

As regards material law, a new mechanism of assignment, of repetition, was introduced in the execution of penalties. It is a new mechanism in criminal law.

For convictions of more than 30 years, you have to wait 15 years before you can apply for electronic surveillance or conditional release. In cases where a person has been awarded 30 years or more but has already been convicted by the correctional court, one must wait 19 years before one can apply for electronic surveillance or conditional release. Anyone who has been awarded 30 years or more for the court of assises, after having been previously convicted by a court of assises, must wait 23 years.

I’m talking about waiting because in the procedure four important elements have been changed.

First, there is no automatism anymore, one must clearly ask for release or electronic surveillance, while it is still a kind of automatism to this day.

Second, there is a different composition of the Criminal Enforcement Court, especially for cases of convicted persons up to more than 30 years, the composition is reinforced with two magistrates, so there is a larger college.

Third, that college must make unanimous decisions.

Fourth, one point that has surprisingly been debated more than the rest is the point that the Minister of Justice can also register a cassation appeal following a decision of a criminal enforcement court.

This is the content of the amended texts, which were eventually approved by a majority of 9 to 5 in the committee.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, Belgium is a country of paradoxes in more than one title, we know it. Today, a gap grows between the criminal system, as it exists and as it is applied by legal specialists, and the growing sense of impunity, widespread among our fellow citizens, but also among certain actors in the criminal chain, such as investigators and prison guards.

How can we understand that prominent legal practitioners, lawyers or magistrates believe that our criminal system is sufficiently severe and, as a whole, works well – this is shown quite regularly from the hearings organized in the Justice Commission – while the average citizen is daily arrested by various facts insufficiently punished, by releases felt as premature?

As a political leader, and as a member of the Reform Movement, the concern of the population interpels me and I want to respond to it. As a regular practitioner of criminal law, I wish that this response be given in strict compliance with the founding principles of criminal law. I think in particular of the role of the judge in any criminal proceedings in the broad sense, at the time of choosing to initiate prosecution, at the time of instruction, deprivation of liberty, of the authorisation of intrusive methods of investigation, at the time of obvious determination of guilt and punishment, as well as at the time of the request for the application of modalities of execution of the sentence, such as conditional release.

With this double hat, the major problem I am facing, like you, and like many other colleagues in the Justice Committee, who are also lawyers and lawyers, is to restore the understanding between professionals and the profane, and to do so through legislative tools, just thought and balanced. In fact, for the first, conditional release is a necessary tool for considering long-term imprisonment, successful social reintegration, as well as the absence of recurrence. For the latter, it appears to be an unjust favor, decided without respect for neither the victim nor the society.

This may seem simplistic to some who will not fail to say it. However, for a majority of citizens, any unlawful act must receive a response, an adequate punishment, both with regard to the profile of the convicted person, and with regard to the fact committed. And any judicial decision imposing a criminal sanction must be effectively executed. Otherwise, the sense of impunity, already too present in the population, will only grow with the perverse effect of increasing violence in the relations between individuals. That’s why it seems important to me, as well as to my group, to respond to some professionals who are shaming – it’s their right – those bills that we are discussing this afternoon.

I think, on the contrary, that the bills we are discussing today have the merit of wanting to reconcile the opposing views I have just described. Indeed, their ambition is to provide a precise solution to situations ⁇ unacceptable for society: to treat cases of very serious crime more severely.

In this approach, it seems to me that the projects are proportionate to their objectives and that the recommended measures are quite reasonable. I will mention only three elements.

First, the fact of providing that a person’s significant criminal past is taken into account when the same person is tried for criminal acts committed less than ten years after the first conviction. This criminal liability is only taken into account when it is decided whether the person is eligible for early release or not, taking into account the elements of the file. These include, for example, a person convicted for trafficking in human beings in order to deliver them to prostitution, then convicted for a rape that resulted in the death of his victim, or a person convicted for intentional beating and injury and then for murder.

Second, the fact of providing that the heavy sentences imposed by magistrates or a popular jury are effectively executed in a substantial manner. I remind him, for the citizen lambda, 30 years in prison, that is 30 years actually spent in prison. The plans provide for them to pay at least 15 years in prison in these cases. This refers, for example, to persons convicted for acts of terrorism that caused the death of victims.

Thirdly, for even more serious cases where crimes and crimes of the same atrocity have succeeded to such an extent that a provision to the court of enforcement of penalties, after having purged the sentence, has been decided by the judge of the substance, the fact of providing that a chamber of the TAP is called to decide on the granting of the conditional release and that that chamber makes it to 5 judges when this request is formulated and that these judges decide unanimously.

Even in these extremely serious situations, a social reintegration must remain possible – and it must be said – but its success here will depend in a more precise way even for these extremely serious cases on the maturity of society itself to accept the latter. But the society can only consider favorably the return of these offenders if it has the feeling that justice has been effectively rendered and that the punishment pronounced and executed against the offenders corresponds to what the law and the judgment have indicated.

This is the purpose of these bills: to participate in the restoration of the citizen’s trust in the criminal judicial authorities.

For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, my group and myself will support these bills. However, I will add that these projects must not dispens us from a thorough reflection on our criminal policy, impregnated with the fundamental principles of criminal law: separation of powers, legality of penalties, guarantee against arbitrary.

Indeed, and I recall it because some believe that we are forgetting these fundamental principles and that this project makes fi ...

Madame Marghem, does the existence of the provision to the government not correspond to these cases of persons severely convicted and who, for fully justified reasons, would remain in detention? Isn’t this a response that has already been planned?

No, Mr. Lahssaini, and you know it, since we have said it for a long time: the provision, first, of the government and then of the court of enforcement of punishments since its coming, is a measure that takes place when the punishment has been definitively executed – that is, after a conditional release if it has been requested or accepted. Therefore, it comes only after this period, which, precisely, is covered by the bill.

However, this does not prevent the refusal of conditional release, nor that the convicted person goes to the bottom of the penalty and the making available to the government and the TAP is applied.

You know that in this case, and only in this case, it is possible.

Therefore, introducing this clause in the new bill is useless.

Absolutely not because we want to act as quickly as possible in the criminal chain and ensure that, for the most serious offences, one can already, at the stage of conditional release, take into account the seriousness of the situation to be able to act. In the case you mentioned, this is only possible a posteriori.

I invite you to continue, Mrs. Marghem.

I conclude by saying that it is only at the cost of a coherent reform, respecting the role of everyone – independent magistrates, prosecutors, police forces, investigative courts, defence lawyers, victims and convicted – that we can restore and reform the criminal justice of our country.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, we are dealing today with urgency – you may have missed it – a bill concerning, among other things, the conditional release. Strictly speaking, it concerns the implementation of the government agreement, and it must also be seen. Nevertheless, this was not always clear during the discussions in the committee, as it did not always prove to be on the same line. However, it became clear that it merely concerned the implementation of the government agreement, since certain parties such as the PS and the MR have not even taken the word in the committee. Only the opposition is learnt, fortunately occasionally supported by CD&V in it, and that seemed right to me.

They want to take more strict action against a certain category of recidivists. That seems to be a respectable goal. They want to increase the time conditions for certain convicts, no problem. The procedure is adjusted: it no longer runs automatically. Condemned persons sentenced to very severe sentences can only be eligible for a conditional release before the Criminal Enforcement Court if there is unanimous vote and if up to five judges agree. The five judges. There is a special procedure for this. Initially, it was also attempted to introduce an injunctive right for the Minister. This was subsequently reduced to a cassation appeal, but I think other colleagues will soon address this issue.

This is, by the way, the second attempt to address the problem, Mrs. Minister. It all began following the release of Mrs. Martin. The State Council then drove you back. Despite the request from the opposition, you have not dared to go again to the State Council to have the new draft reviewed. It was not necessary. You did not want to test the design for practice and we have seen the result. It leads to a call from people from the practice who will have to apply the design. You have ignored the criminal enforcement court and actually made a motion of distrust. You did not find it necessary to review the design further.

It is often the case that when one wants to carry out a reform, one expects the government to come to Parliament with it. Members of Parliament often make smaller proposals, but ⁇ for the VI or Conditional Freedom, something that affects society and which is a pillar of the punishment execution which for you should become the lakmus test, it is expected that such a bill will be a major reform, a thoughtful story. This is ⁇ expected of this government, because it always has a mouth full of major reforms that will be carried out.

What happens every time again? We saw it with the nonsense and we see it today: there is no big story. There is no major reform. It remains, unfortunately, rumble in the margin: very small adjustments for a very small category. Do not misunderstand me. I do not think it is wrong to introduce stricter measures for the heaviest category. I just don’t understand why you limit yourself to a niche and don’t take a global approach to the whole problem. This is indeed an example of stealth policy. The media talk this week about the law-Martin, but one could just as well call it the law-Dutroux. After all, it is on the reading of that casus.

The weight of the de facto legislation is always inversely proportional to the controller in the media. It is always greatly proposed, until one begins to thoroughly examine what something ultimately means. It becomes symptomatic, it becomes a habit. I repeat that we experienced this with the nonsense and now again today. Why not simply reform a procedure? But what does the government do with the VI procedure? It makes them more complex, it creates an exceptional regime. Do you know what exceptional regimes do? This causes procedural errors. What Causes Procedural Errors? and a release. Do we not want to avoid this? We make something more complex, with all the risks wasted.

One could also take the conditional release position globally and think about it, but no, we go back to a very limited category: those who were sentenced to 30 years. When one looks at the procedure to be adjusted, one often notices that they are being made available.

This is about 13 people. That is your great reform. Those 13 people are not insignificant. It is important that this law is amended, but there are 13.

Figures turn out to be a difficult story. In the committee, you have made a look at 365 in the global story. If we know that there are 11,000 prisoners, we do not exceed 3%. That is why this law is made. However, there are 11 000 people eligible for VI. They amend the law, they reform it for less than 3%.

This is a missed opportunity. This is not a major reform, but a fragmentary, segmentary approach. Here was once and for all the chance to score. One could have chosen to address this at the foundations, to evaluate and adjust, to strengthen, in short to look at and to commemorate.

I just hear from the MR: we must not go away from it, we must do it. They had the opportunity to do it. You just got the opportunity to do so by sending the draft back to the committee and listening to the people involved. But no, you ⁇ don’t want to do that. Vote quickly and forget.

Do not misunderstand me. We are not against an effort, but we are against this thoughtless and limited effort. A comprehensive approach is needed.

Before you say that the N-VA always has criticism and no alternative, I want to remind you that we had an alternative. We have submitted the amendments for that comprehensive approach for all people eligible for VI. We dare to take the jump. You will not jump with. I find that regrettable.

We had a solution, not only the tightening of the time conditions within which one can qualify for the conditional release, but also for other factors, Mrs. Minister and members of the majority. Factors that everybody had a mouth full of this summer. The victim should be better informed and involved in everything.

Communication with society remains a difficult story. There is a perception problem. We do not explain it well. Now there was the possibility to address this in the procedure. Motivate judgments better. Leave it out. Let the judge make it clear to the victims, to the convicted, to the society so that that commotion about it can cease, so that one knows that Justice works and does its work. This is clear and open and clear. This too has not been addressed.

We have submitted an amendment to enhance the role of the victim. This was, however, what was anticipated after Luik, after the release of Mrs. Martin. They do not do it today. Not at all;

Our amendments also provided additional control options. Those who receive a conditional release, according to our text adjustments, are at least under surveillance. We wanted to introduce control or investigation capabilities to check whether the conditions for the release are fulfilled. The drama of Luik has learned that this can be useful. But nothing of all that, absolutely nothing. We have offered those possibilities and put those alternatives on the table, but you have ignored them. In short, a missed opportunity.

I can still assume that you did not simply want to accept our proposals because they come from the opposition, but I would like to call on you today to let our proposals be a source of inspiration. After all, you are apparently still planning to keep a reflection. You may also be able to take a look at our alternatives, because they are comprehensive and dare to bring about a change, a change that will be needed. Inspiration is now just what was missing when drafting your bill.

In the committee we have formulated a lot of comments, also of a technical nature. I would like to repeat some of them, because they seem so important and so fundamental to me, but of course I will not repeat all of our comments.

First, you want to deal with repetition. Following the release of Mrs. Martin, a gap was identified. After all, a criminal conviction after a correctional conviction does not appear to be a repetition. You want to adjust that. You could change that fundamentally by simply entering a definition of repetition in the code. Instead, you will conduct a separate procedure with the obligation of motivation of the assistant judge, because you do not want to deviate from the government agreement. However, the State Council had explicitly stated that you should address this in its entirety. In your bill, you clearly say that you cannot do that because the government agreement contradicts that. You are now introducing a motivation. I have already tried to explain to you in the committee that there are also other convictions to a criminal sentence, pronounced by a correctional court. The obligation to justify does not apply to those convictions. Today, there is only half a solution. The story becomes more complex, the solution is not complete and the risk of mistakes and inequalities persists. This is the beginning of a problem.

Second, much more important is that this is a selective effort. You set the thirty-year limit. A person who has been sentenced to 30 years now must meet a higher time condition to be eligible for conditional release. What if someone is sentenced to twenty-nine years for, for example, child abuse? For the convicted, nothing changes.

That person remains eligible for release from a third party. Try to explain to the victims, family members and society why a conviction of someone for acts of abuse or anything else can justify an earlier release than a 30-year-old. Explain that. This again shows the bankruptcy of the scheme you want to enter. This shows that you need to go for a comprehensive approach, a comprehensive effort. In addition, your list of crimes was not entirely complete. Thankfully, you have adjusted this after we pointed out to you. I am grateful that you have at least removed that incompleteness.

Then we come to the so-called injunction law. Eventually, it became a cassation appeal, the injunction court has not remained. This is another exceptional measure. You need to explain why this is necessary. The public prosecutor can perfectly record cassation appeals. So why should those tools be given to the minister again, except to be able to tame in the media that an appeal has been filed? A cassation appeal is not about the facts, it is about the procedure. If the Prosecutor’s Office, the Prosecutor’s Office, finds that there have been procedural errors or that there has been a poor application of law, it has the duty to register a cassation appeal. They don’t need a minister for that. That is simply not necessary. It is again a measure for nothing. In addition, this risks to be a violation of the separation of powers.

I will listen with great attention to hear if you are already aware of what that new amended provision exactly means. During the discussion in the committee, there were still two versions. I am very curious if you are already out. This is symptomatic for this government.

I will then come to a fourth observation to your legislation. I dare say that you did not have too much inspiration but above all that you showed a lack of confidence. You showed a lack of trust in the actors of Justice. You adjust the procedure before the Criminal Enforcement Court. These criminal enforcement courts were notoriously established after Dutroux and we are now going to adjust them. First evaluation was not necessary, we will immediately adjust them. In serious cases, we will employ five judges. There is a shortage of judges, but there must be five and they must all agree. Unanimity is unanimity, whether there are three, five or seven. Those three judges could do it perfectly. Again, you did that without listening to the people of the criminal enforcement court.

Unanimity is unanimity. The five judges? That’s a great motion of mistrust for the actors, for the people who work hard day by day, day by day, follow up files and try their best. You, as the Minister of Justice, and the majority draw the red card for those people. I find this ⁇ regrettable. I also think that we could better use those forces elsewhere.

In summary, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, this draft law is pure stealth policy. You know that, in all honesty, everyone. This is a serious matter. I understand the idea behind it and I can best follow it, but you had the ultimate reason why you are addressing this now, to have to grasp to go ahead, to dare to think and dare to jump. Now we have a limited solution, which is a motion of distrust for the actors on the ground, which only counts for a small category and which in addition makes the procedure more complex, with the likelihood of all sorts of procedural errors, and that precisely for the most severe cases. Try to think about it. That is the right punishment.

You still pretend that the draft law involves a struggle, but for more than 90% of the detainees nothing changes. They fall under the same regime. With limited effort, that can count. It is not a reform either. It is a solution that does not take into account conclusions drawn about victims and communication, it has not been tested on the ground and – which is very important – it is not at any time supported by any vision on criminal policy, on the execution of punishment or on a detention plan, because that too is postponed until 2015. We will not think about that. Also about the approach of recidive and the accompaniment of those people is not considered.

Is this your lactose test? Is that your great reform? I do not think. It is just a rush in the margin and that sounds me sad. I find this ⁇ regrettable. They laugh at justice. Each time a fire is extinguished. A measure is being taken. Something is being tested in the media and then we move on to the next incident. It will be and it will remain so. The comprehensive story is completely absent and remains out, despite the inspector. Every week more and more incidents accumulate, but the solutions remain out. I am deeply saddened by this, Mrs. Minister. Justice, people and society deserve better.

I have not yet received an amendment from your group. There is a new bill, I think.

I have submitted my amendments to the committee. I will not do that here. I would like to discuss this at another time, but not today. It would only drown in the unwillingness that reigns over it.

very well . There is a new bill, I think.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the draft that is on the agenda of our session accumulates all the vices and defects that we should avoid when adopting a draft or proposal of law, especially for matters as delicate as the issues of conditional release or the modification of our criminal legislation.

I will develop my arguments on both the form and the substance and explain why we will not support this text.

Regarding the form, I deeply regret that we have been so fast and that the French-speaking colleagues of the majority have been silent from the beginning to the end of the committee debate; I had to mention it. I regret that we did not organize hearings, as we requested and as the field actors still ask today. I also regret that the State Council was able to read only the first version of the text, while the second version was very different, in particular due to the criticism it had formulated.

It is not because we like to make the pleasure last, as the minister has often said in committees, or because, as members of the opposition, we like to delay the work of the majority, that we disagree. I think I can say that our group and other colleagues in the Justice Committee have done a constructive job, even for projects that are hardly acceptable given the values we carry and defend. I remain convinced that we should have taken at least one more week – which was not enormous – to hear the field actors, who scream today to denounce the project.

Their words are important; they deserve to be quoted and taken into account. Referring to them, I will try not to forget them; in fact, many of them have manifested themselves since the beginning of the examination of this text in committee.

I will, first of all, cite the Human Rights League, the International Prison Observatory and the Trade Union Association of Magistrates, which denounce the adoption of this text. "Based on the emotion generated by the announcement of Michelle Martin's conditional release, we want to change a system that, overall, works well," representatives said, denouncing this tendency to legislate to communicate rather than improve society. They also denounce the government’s criminal populism.

Legifying quickly and without hearing is also what the representatives of the bar, Avocats.be, denounce, saying that, in this way, we are taken from a democracy to a “democracy”: “After an event that has shaken the public opinion, one wants to react hastily, taking measures that do not seem justified.”

The Centre of Secular Action, which deplores the adoption of this “onerous and ineffective” law, insists that beyond precipitation, it does not rely on any valid criminological data – we have also denounced it in a committee – while it will have significant financial implications in terms of additional charges for the state budget. He added that this method “does not honor a democratic debate.”

Finally, I will also relay what he said on Tuesday morning to the radio Hervé Louveaux, of the syndical association of magistrates, who regrets "a backward compared to the struggle against recidive". According to him, “the prison as we know it in Belgium is rarely constructive and conditional release is a way to replace the punishment with an existence in ways controlled by the court of execution of penalties and to allow a reintegration into society. This is the very object of the conditional release.”

Let’s go point by point. Regarding the Minister’s right of injunction, I will again cite the Higher Council of Justice, which says of the bill that “it puts, on certain points, in danger the principle of equality.” We must, for this, make a return on the evolution of the law Lejeune since 1888, since it provided that the conditional release was a favor left to the free judgment of the minister.

Fortunately, this legislation has evolved with the laws of 1998 and 2006 that allowed objectivization of decisions. These are judges who decide on the basis of the behavior of the detainee in prison, on the basis of the opinion of doctors, psychiatrists, but also of the prison director. The detainee must present a credible reintegration plan, which keeps the way. At the least wrong step, it is the return to the prison. Therefore, it is no longer the Minister who decides in his office. They are judges who, on the basis of all these criteria, decide within the Court of Application of Punishments, an impartial and independent court, following a contradictory debate and with a multidisciplinary team.

With this text, the minister will now be able to question the decisions taken by the court of application of penalties by requesting a review through an appeal, in the Court of Cassation, by the public prosecution.

For me and for our group, this is the acknowledgment by the Minister and the Government of the lack of confidence they have in the decisions made by the Penal Court, to the point that they consider it necessary to be able to question them. This is a real interference of the executive power in the judiciary. This attitude should be avoided as much as possible.

With the adoption of this text, we go back more than a hundred years; we go back to the nineteenth century. Conditional release will no longer be a subjective right of the detainee, as the legislation has made it evolve, but will again become a favor, which I find regrettable and which I condemn. I recall that it is the history of our society that has made us evolve towards a more independent and objectivable decision.

I will conclude by referring to the Avocats.be note that refers to this point to Damien Vandermeersch who explains this evolution from favour to right: "What characterizes the new regime applicable to the different measures of execution of penalties is that it is no longer favors, but measures that are part of the standard scheme of execution of imprisonment penalties." In other words, once the legal conditions are met, the minister and the judge no longer have discretion. They must take the measure. He added: “This intervention of the judiciary must enable the convicted person to see his case examined by an independent and impartial court in the context of a contradictory debate.”

This will now be endangered, and I deeply regret it.

An important element of this law is also the notion of recurrence of crime on crime. We supported that aspect, despite one element of this change that does not suit us and which I will denounce later.

Remember, what had moved the population during the conditional release of Michelle Martin was that despite her prior correctional conviction in 1983-1985 for rape and kidnapping, she was not considered a recidivist by the Arlon Court of Appeals in 2004. Recurrence, in the case of a crime committed after a crime, will now be better considered. This seemed useful and important.

In general, the conditions of conditional release will be delayed in case of recurrence: not earlier than fifteen years, or half the sentence; nineteen years in case of condemnation to three years in the previous ten years; twenty-three years in case of recurrence.

I will allow myself to relay the remarks of Jean-Baptiste Andries, president of the Professional Union of Magistrates, who on the radio Tuesday noon said: "There are things that are quite demagogical, in the sense that keeping someone in prison five years longer, saying that conditional release will be more effective at half the penalty than at third, I think it is an illusion."

In the committee, my colleague and I insisted a lot on this aspect. This measure of tightening conditions in time and access to conditional release will not contribute to the fight against recurrence, will not promote a better reintegration into society, and goes against one of the priorities that you say you have been set, namely the fight against prison overpopulation.

In its latest report on the subject, the Court of Auditors recalls that “early release encompasses measures that shorten the sentence and which aim in particular an early release from prison. These measures promote the flow against prison overpopulation. The data simulation shows that without the application of conditional release, the prison population would have an average of 2,200 units more.”

I would refer to an eminent colleague who expressed very correct words in an article in the newspaper Le Soir: "Faced with the extent of the prison overpopulation, one can no longer be content with declarations of principle. We must fight all the ideas that have been made and question the relevance of the system.” These are those of Thierry Giet, who is not there. But I would like to hear him on this subject, because his remarks do not seem to be consistent with the draft that will be voted today.

This is what we are calling for, Mr. Secretary. The plans of this government are inconsistent and go against the great statements you have made. As we have said, it seems to me that the goal of the whole society must be to prevent recurrence. After a sentence, it is in the interest of all that the convicted person reintegrates as best as possible into society. This is good for the prisoner and for society. However, by letting people go to the bottom of their hardships, as is increasingly the case, we are not at all favouring this reintegration. Indeed, after a sentence purged entirely, the detainee is released unconditionally, but often without a plan for reintegration.

If you look at the latest report from the penitentiary administration, you will notice that in 2011, the number of release at the end of the sentence is much higher than the number of conditional release. This confirms a trend observed for several years. But we know, especially thanks to the work of the French penitentiary administration, that it is exactly the opposite that must be done if we want to prevent the recurrence. This draft law therefore contradicts what all field actors explain. I add that the Council of Europe does not say anything else: “Conditional release is one of the most effective tools in the criminal system to combat recurrence and promote good reintegration into society.”

So, how do you understand, dear colleagues, that you support this bill that amends the 2006 law? Intellectually speaking, there is no basis for this reasoning.

And I will conclude this point by again quoting Jean-Baptiste Andries, president of the Professional Union of Magistrates, who referred to ancestral logic: "We find the first reflex of exclusion: someone has failed, they exclude him; they cut his head; they send him to the bag; they no longer want to see him. Now things are a little more complicated. When one tries to build a civilized society based on a certain humanism, one finds that the best way to live together is to do everything to make it happen the best. We must therefore remain in the logic of reinsertion without yet showing Angelism.”

I also regret the removal of the automatic nature of the conditional release procedure, as well as the reduction of the release procedure to a written procedure. At present, when it’s time, the conditional release procedure starts automatically. A director, social or psychosocial services will see the detainee. They inform him, giving him a document, explaining him orally that he can access conditional release and what procedures are to be initiated to engage in this request. This has the merit of putting the prisoner back in motion: he must move, question himself, question himself, and reflect on his return to society. In the current project, the government removes the automatic character of the procedure. Only informed prisoners, who have ⁇ ined contact with their lawyer or with the outside will react and not the others.

I also regret that the new bill allows only the procedure for requesting conditional release in writing. More and more, we are going to exclude, and there are also many, as in our society, those who can neither read nor write, who will be delivered to themselves, without any possibility of liberation. This is extremely harmful. We had also submitted an amendment requesting that the procedure be ⁇ ined and that it can always be oral and written; unfortunately, it was rejected by the majority.

This bill also looked at procedural reforms that will soon come into effect and which once again highlight, on the one hand, a lack of understanding of the current functioning of the TAP and, on the other hand, a genuine distrust towards the judges and staff of the TAP, who today decide whether to grant or not a conditional release. Currently, TAP decisions depend on three people: a judge and two counselors. From now on, there will be five: three persons and two judges of the correctional. But they will also have to, as we have already said, vote unanimously for those sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment or life imprisonment accompanied by disposal.

In my opinion, this is what highlights a misunderstanding of the current functioning of the TAP, which very often acts by consensus, following a dialogue, an exchange on each of the cases, with a multidisciplinary team and taking all aspects into account. It is also a motion of distrust towards the TAP in its current composition and functioning. This is a lack of respect for his work.

When we plan to match this new team of two judges of the correctional, I ask myself whether we want to make believing that the decisions taken today by the TAP are too laxist. However, the procedure is already very strict.

In addition, I would add that we are facing a significant and recurrent shortage of judges. Demanding decisions by five and unanimously risks further increasing the congestion of cases, slowing down the fight against judicial backwardness and blocking any decision in the absence of agreement with five.

Finally, I also regret the rejection by this majority of our amendment aimed at better taking victims into account in TAP decisions. The conditional release of Michelle Martin also highlighted that some victims felt hurt, received little information and/or received it late, and could not give an opinion on this request for conditional release.

I still have to refer, this time, to a statement from the PS that said at the time "to be moved and regret the way these families were informed of the TAP decision". Last Tuesday, we filed an amendment aimed at allowing victims to be informed earlier of the request for conditional release, to be able to give an opinion on the conditions they would like to be imposed on the detainee in his interest and, of course, to force the prosecutor to wait for this notice before any decision is made. This would allow the victims to feel involved and prepare as best as possible for this conditional release.

Again, I have to regret that the majority did not follow our proposals.

Mr. Speaker, to conclude, I will never insist enough to say how damaging and, in my opinion, totally unworthy of a work of the government and parliament is this blatant work, voted in a hurry. All the field actors quoted just before – League of Human Rights (francophone and Dutch-speaking), associations of French-speaking and Dutch-speaking magistrates, university professors, French-speaking and Dutch-speaking bars – united this afternoon, asking us as a last resort to send the project back into a committee in order to listen to what they had to say, to hear their experience.

“It is necessary to avoid any precipitation dictated by popular emotion, in order to prevent a ‘circumstance’ law from leading to an unacceptable regression on the ground of respect for human rights and procedural guarantees in criminal matters.” I share this view, which is why my group and myself will not support this project. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, what follows is a proposal to strengthen the conditional release as agreed in the government agreement. These are ⁇ serious crimes with a sentence of 30 years or life imprisonment. For both categories, the procedure for conditional release is equalized and the time limit within which the application for conditional release can be submitted is increased. The reason for the passage into the government agreement was the release of Michelle Martin. Initially, a so-called security period was chosen, but eventually the proposed procedure was chosen.

The reason for the proposal itself is the imminent appearance before the Criminal Enforcement Court of Marc Dutroux. Colleagues, I think it is understandable that the release of Michelle Martin as the Dutroux case has caused a serious commotion in the public opinion. I think it is normal for Parliament to take this into account.

That does not mean that politics must accept a call for revenge from the public opinion. It is good to discuss a tightening of the conditional release, but that does not prevent that in democratic discussions and a legal answer to those questions, respect for the rule of law and the philosophy of the execution of punishment must be demonstrated. Those who are condemned to a punishment must also accept the punishment. At the same time, the person concerned should also be given the opportunity to return to society after that sentence.

We agreed to the draft in the committee after a number of adjustments were made.

At the request of the majority and the opposition, a clarification has been made in the articles relating to the repeat, which has also been referred to thereafter.

We may also find ourselves in the active step required by a detainee to request conditional release.

We had trouble with the proposed adviester mines, which in fact automatically exceeds the permissibility date. We are pleased that our amendment on this subject was accepted. In the amendment, on the one hand, notification is important, but at the same time the deadlines are respected. This has also been done for the transitional period, so that ultimately enough guarantees will be given to everyone for the correct handling of the ongoing procedure.

The so-called injunctive right for the execution of the penalty was clearly limited to the cassation appeals. For us it is indeed too far that a Minister of Justice, regardless of who the Minister of Justice is at the conscious moment, acts in individual cases and thus interferes in the execution of penalties without general guidelines.

The amendment that the Minister has submitted to its draft has addressed our concern in this regard and the Minister can only invoke the injunction law for cassation services, limiting it to formal requirements and procedural rules. The law does not encompass a substantive assessment of the conditional release.

A minister is too often accused of not being strict enough. There is a tendency in our society to punish harder and act more repressively. I understand that a minister would like to say that he or she has done everything to bring certain criminals behind the tracks and in certain cases also to keep them, especially when the emotions rise high and the public opinion begs for satisfaction. However, this cannot be done at the expense of the rule of law, legal certainty and equality of law.

Minister Turtelboom is not the first to face this. Anyone who has been sitting here longer than I am and follows the Department of Justice will remember that former minister Jo Vandeurzen was also faced with that, when the murderer of Kitty Van Nieuwenhuysen would be released. He also faced the dilemma of whether he could intervene or not. However, he then said that the prosecutor’s office must act, whatever it has done, according to the general existing legal rules. It is the public prosecutor who has judged what could and what could not.

The court of injunction in the original draft text granted a broad jurisdiction. Today, this is limited to cassation. Mrs. Minister, you say that this is only a small part and we therefore expect that you will not use it.

In addition, I would like to highlight some of the concerns that we continue to have following the proposed legislation. First, we fear that the prisoners, due to a combination of longer time conditions, longer trial period and stricter procedure, will remain in prison more and more often until the penalty ends. One can easily say in itself that there is nothing against it, for a punishment is a punishment and it must be entirely enforced. However, this also means that the prisoner is released from day to day, without any preparation, without proper work on reintegration.

Therefore, we continue to emphasize that, among other things, the detention plan as set out in the basic legislation, the Dupont Act of 2005, continues to be implemented. We rely on you to ensure that reintegration into society is possible in a realistic way. It is now partially obstructed. We fear that the new legislation will reduce the use of the conditional release, which, however, often allows the detainee the way back to society, so that he can play a role again.

In addition, there may be insufficient prison capacity. I was asked about how many people it is. Five hundred, they told us, but we have not received confirmation from you. The new law could long-term mortgage the prison capacity, with all the effects on the prison population. If detainees stay longer in prison, it means less room for short sentences. You say that you also want to fully execute short penalties. Therefore, I think, Mrs. Minister, that you must definitely commit to the fact that the punishment capacity also remains sufficient.

The committee also called for the strengthening of the victim’s position. You would soon come up with a bill and we expect that, hopefully in the short term. However, there are still several draft laws on the table.

Finally, if you are rightly concerned about an overdue or even unjustified conditional release, why did you choose to only aggravate the procedure? Why have you not proposed the conditions that prisoners must meet in order to be released on conditional terms? I refer to our proposal to include in the conditions, among other things, the efforts made to compensate the victim. Other conditions were also possible. We have not linked our proposal to this; we will prioritize it in the committee.

Mr. Minister, you regularly refer to the debilitating confidence in the judiciary. It is a common concern to give Justice that trust and let it radiate. Sometimes it is necessary to trust independent magistrates against the public opinion. That was the reason why, at that time, after the Dutroux case, the criminal enforcement courts were established and the right to be released on conditional grounds and on the basis of an independent judgment of a court. It is our concern that one does not return to that and does not return from the objective legal assessment to a political justice. We would like to maintain these legal guarantees, now and in the future, also for the shorter penalties.

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, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, etc. Not that it’s your fault that it’s a bulb store, but today we’re talking about that one ball of course.

It is an almost perfect bill. I explain myself more closely. This is legally and politically actually the equivalent of the perfect recipe for making a nougabol. I have now moved to Antwerp and there the term nougabollen is used quite often. This is really a political nougabol.

Other speakers before me have already said it. This is a missed opportunity to thoroughly reform and really tighten the conditional liberation position, except for a very limited group and that tightening does not go as far as we want.

There will be no alternatives to us. We had prepared a series of legislative proposals, which have also been discussed in the committee, which aim to reform the conditional release policy across its entire length and width and depth.

Now I can be short and say what is not coming. What does not come from what many citizens today want and what they wait for?

Then we talked about emotions. We must admit that impunity and laxity in this country engage much more than in other countries. In addition, our bills are often based on laws in the countries around us.

What is positive? Some baremas are raised, if I can call it baremas. For those who actually commit serious crimes, that is 23 years instead of 19 or 14 years. We can live with that.

The unanimity of five judges is required instead of three judges. With three judges, we are indeed at greater risk that people with a progressive view of a prisoner will judge. If you are five, there can be a conservative judge in between. They are still there, I think. We only increase that chance. This also reduces the likelihood of accidents. In this regard, we have no criticism.

Where is the criticism? What would we have done? Very clearly . I will begin with the effective punishment of the most severe crimes. We are in favor of that. Let me explain how our group sees this.

First, anyone who commits an extremely horrible crime, as Marc Dutroux did, for example, will not get a new chance. “One strike and you’re out” is an Anglo-Saxon rule. I believe, by the way, that rule was introduced at the time under Democratic President Bill Clinton in the United States. I want to lose that for a moment.

Then I come to a second case. When a recidive happens by murder in a doodslag, men get no new chance. Two strikes and you’re out.

When there is repeated recurrence of extremely violent crimes, accompanied by a life crime, such as a murder attempt, or also when in a correctional case it is a third offence, then we say: three strikes and you’re out. Those perpetrators do not deserve a second chance. Farid Le Fou is a perfect example. Anyone who has looked at the state of service of such men knows that re-integration into society deserves almost no opportunities, simply because such people may not be psychically able to do so.

We have one strike, two strikes, three strikes and you’re out. What would we do with it? We propose special lifetime imprisonment, at least with lifetime disposal by the government. This means that the victim has no chance of being released. This exists in several countries.

How would we realize this? Well, the judge who imposes the punishment, the real criminal judge, we want to give a little more power again. Judges are now put in their shirt. They impose a punishment, but that punishment is not executed, nor the smaller punishments, nor the very severe punishments. Michelle Martin is walking on free feet. If a professional judge, together with a jury, imposes a sentence, then there may be a judge who says that the convicted person concerned must never be released again. Now the criminal judges sit there as pale sheep to watch how the persons they have condemned, sometimes after several months, again stand before them with new facts, in order to continue to fall into recidive.

We are only talking about a category that is not even mentioned here today, the short punishments. At the committee meeting I cited a quote and I allow myself to quote a judge in the plenary session today, in particular Judge Bloch: “If short penalties are no longer executed and fines are no longer collected, does it actually make sense that we are here to impose penalties? The meaning of a punishment is also determined by the way it is executed, isn’t it?”Well, only those who are punished for thirty years or more are discussed in the present bill.

We would also like to add additional conditions to the reasons why one may be released. Why should someone who cooperates very well with the criminal investigation later not have a more chance of getting a reduction in punishment? This is not a condition at the moment. One does not have to accuse itself for this as a suspect at all – I know that this argument has been cited in the committee – but if one gives clear indications about, among other things, who the co-factors are and where the evidence was hidden when one was caught on the act of harassment, why can one not get a reduction in punishment because one cooperates in the investigation and is benevolent to the court? These are all things that are not taken into account in the law today. This opportunity is also missed today.

A sensitive penalty leverage in case of legal repetition. Why not ? We then avoid the phenomenon that judges impose a sentence of three years and one day so that a convicted person falls under the penalty enforcement court and does not fall into the system of short sentences. This will not come into effect until 2015.

Finally, our unique selling proposition is that the conditional release should again become a favor, a privilege, and not an automatic right in itself. That would be a whole step forward. It would encourage many prisoners to behave in prison as well, and it could help drive drugs out of prisons.

But well, this is not all about today. In fact, we’re talking here only for the gallery because it’s just about thirty years or more punished. This is nothing but symbolic legislation. The symbol or icon that could be placed on this legislation is an empty box.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister of Justice, I think we can hear a lot of observations and controversies regarding your project. I heard that we had worked in the emergency and that we practiced "democracy" instead of dedicating ourselves to a substantial work and reflection. Let me simply remind the honorable members of this assembly that for a few years we have been discussing the strengthening and tightening of a series of punishments against the most abject acts committed within our society. In the government statement, this aggravation is planned for the cases that are presented to us today. The negotiations have been long enough, I think, to consider a reflection on this subject.

We can obviously not agree with the objective that is being pursued, but to say that in this case we would have rushed to legislate, that we would only react in the case of Michelle Martin, or even that of Dutroux that will come up in the coming weeks, this is not accurate or consistent with the reality.

Within the groups, and it was my case, opinions may have evolved about certain punishments that need to be strengthened if one wanted to correctly respond to the interpellations, often legitimate, but not always, of the population who wonder why some ⁇ abject and non-repentant criminals could get out a little too quickly. This is what has led to the reflection that has been proposed to us by the government and which is contained in the texts presented today. I think it should be right to keep. Sophie De Wit said earlier that this concerned a few dozen cases. She mentioned a number of thirteen situations that could be targeted by this project. We are therefore not in the process of profoundly and wickedly revolutionizing our Criminal Code by tightening the conditions of conditional release. We try to respond to occasional and particular situations: we are talking about sentences to thirty years or life sentences.

It is true that if I had been Minister of Justice, Mrs. Turtelboom, I might not have chosen the same path that you take. I think I would have tried not to touch the conditional release. We could have achieved the same result in a slightly different way.

I had submitted, as far as I am concerned – and other parliamentary groups have also done so, even though there are nuances in the texts and in the approaches – a bill aimed at introducing security penalties.” The objective was the same as that which you pursue in your text, to this nuance and to this difference near that my proposal entrusted a magistrate the care to appreciate a minimum and a maximum, in a range that was fixed to him. He would have done it in full independence according to the case he had in front of him, his dangerousness, the hypothesis of recurrence...

We could have had a case-by-case response, tailor-made, a little more personalized. Per ⁇ we could have thus expanded the number of situations concerned, instead of doing so through what you considered preferable, namely a reinforcement of the conditions of conditional release applicable in a flat-rate manner to everyone, regardless of the personal situation in which the convicted person is in and whatever the evolution of that person may have been throughout his prison journey.

One can understand those who say that sometimes, the way of working and the choice that has been made leave little room for confidence in the judicial world and in the concept of reintegration. It appears to be based on the principle that these reinsertions are often failed or do not produce the desired results.

If I had been Minister of Justice, ⁇ I would not have delayed the appeal in cassation and would not have been granted a power of injunction. We know well – and you first, Madam the Minister – that by wishing that the prosecutor’s office go into cassation of a decision of the court of application of penalties, you can never but invite the Court of Cassation to decide on the form of the elements of the procedure, but never on the substance.

I would have preferred – in accordance with a bill I have filed and that only the VLD, by the way, has co-signed in the person of Carina Van Cauter – that one imagine and see the possibility of opening a degree of appeal to the decisions of the court of execution of penalties. Per ⁇ not against all the decisions of the court of enforcement of sentences, but ⁇ against those concerning sentences exceeding three years, since this is a criterion recognised in your text.

We might have been better inspired and the text would ⁇ have been less criticized if we had given magistrates – we could have kept their number at three rather than put them on five – the ability to have a new reading of the facts, to appreciate them and to make known whether they confirmed the decision of their first-instance colleagues or if they denied it by giving the reasons for their decision. I think this is a situation that public opinion could have understood. The paths I would have taken might not have been the same, but the goal set for these very precise, particular and punctual situations is the one stated in the government statement. It is a question of 15 to 19 years, or even beyond, in the case – I recall – of sentences to 30 years or to life. This does not seem to me to justify the screams of orphanage raised by some who seem to discover texts, some of which have been on the table for many years.

I would like to address Mr. President for a moment. and broccoli.

You also belong to the majority. By saying that if you had been in Mrs. Turtelboom’s place, you have shown cowardice.

I do not see how cowardly it is to defend at the tribune of this homicide the proposals of law that have been submitted in knowledge of the cause and whose objective is the same as that referred to in the text deposited by the minister.

They are also on the agenda.

That is why – this will not escape you – at the last Justice Committee, I requested to disjoin the proposal on appeal of the decisions of the penalty enforcement court.

These proposals were also on the agenda during the discussion of the bill.

I recall that we had requested to organize hearings in order to have a more comprehensive discussion on the draft and the bills submitted. These hearings were refused. By expressing your amazement at the field actors who, you think, discover the texts while the discussions are not from yesterday, you take them for people who do not follow the work of the parliament and who are notorious incultes, which – I think – is absolutely not the case.

The actors of the field did not discover the text yesterday.

In my opinion, it would have been profitable if we heard the field actors. If that were the case, ⁇ you should not have shown cowardice towards the Minister of Justice. In this regard, however, the government is not unanimous.

Do not use words that go beyond your mind. There is no cowardice in this matter. I was absent last week for health reasons.

You are speaking on behalf of the CDH, I suppose, Mr. Brotcorne?

Anyway, Parliament has decided not to listen to the actors, we will not go back on this, move forward, or we will never finish.

We will, of course, not approve this text. There are five major reasons why we will not support the law-Turtelboom.

First, the course of the legislative process was shameful. The government has taken plenty of time to conduct discussions within the government and IKW’s. If she is finally out there, even after negative opinions from the State Council, she comes to Parliament and everything must be chased through there as soon as possible.

This is incomprehensible, because it is a fundamental change in a legislation that has been in place for a long time. When such a matter comes to Parliament, it is no more than normal that it is thoroughly considered and discussed and that, especially in such legislation, the actors in the field are also listened to.

Mrs. Minister, I could give you examples of bills and bills on which hearings have already been held. I remember another bill on overhanging branches. One wanted to amend a provision on this in the Civil Code and for this purpose hearing was organized, but for a fundamental change as the conditional release could and could not.

It should therefore not be surprising that the Chairman of the Chamber this afternoon received the visit of Dutch-speaking and French-speaking lawyers, of Dutch-speaking and French-speaking magistrates, of Dutch-speaking and French-speaking professors and of many other organizations that all come with the same message that they are concerned about what happens with that law and especially about the way this happens, with a total lack of any reflection, participation and listening readiness.

Mr. Van Hecke, I recall, because this is important, that I received a phone call shortly before the start of the session. I was asked if it was possible for me to receive people a few minutes before the session. I was flexible, but they could have done it sooner!

Mr. Speaker, as President, you have shown more openness and willingness to listen than the competent minister. I am very pleased that you have received them.

I now come to the second part of my argument, the opinion of the State Council. A draft law is submitted for advice to the Council of State. The State Council was not faulty in its opinion on the first text. Therefore, a number of changes had to be made. If the Constitution or the separation of powers is violated and the Council of State notes this, then one can only change the text. The proposed alternative to extend the composition of the Criminal Enforcement Court from three to five members under certain circumstances, with two additional professional judges, and to introduce unanimity for certain decisions, was not submitted to the Council of State for advice. Furthermore, we refused to respond to our question and to obtain advice on the amendment. However, a consultation on this subject was ⁇ and ⁇ necessary.

We have already talked about the so-called injunction law. There was also a lot of discussion in the press, before the discussion in the committee. CD&V got a lot of punishment from the corner. I was very pleased that the CD&V colleagues from the majority dared to say that this could not be for them and that they would not approve the article. It was not about the least. Professor Torfs is always against everywhere so it shouldn’t be surprising that he gave criticism. However, that Mrs. Becq also criticized was new. Furthermore, it was unseen that Raf Terwingen as the group leader also joined the criticism.

They compared the minister to an emperor – did they forget to make it an emperor? – who could indicate, by means of speaking with the thumb up or down, whether she agreed with the criminal enforcement court. This could not be done for those involved. That criticism, Mrs. Becq, was also quite right. You will always find in us a partner if you take out such criticism. Unfortunately, this criticism quickly disappeared once the discussions in the committee began.

That criticism was justified because it is an unprecedented extension of the injunction law. It follows, in fact, that if the Minister does not agree with a judgment of the Criminal Court, the Prosecutor’s Office may order the Prosecutor’s Office to sign a cassation appeal, as if the Prosecutor’s Office itself is not mature enough to judge whether or not to register a cassation appeal, as if the Prosecutor’s Office itself is not able to judge whether or not there are legal problems with a judgment of the Criminal Court.

This attitude demonstrates a total lack of confidence in the parliament. It is a motion of distrust, even with respect to the parket.

The pressure on the minister will increase. After all, it risks that, now that the possibility has been incorporated into the legislation, the pressure on a particular matter, which receives a lot of media attention, will grow. Action groups who protest and know that the minister can intervene will naturally use such a means.

In one case, the remedy will be used. In the other case, in which its use may be justified, but for which there are no press groups and for which the media have no attention, you, Mrs. Minister, will of course not be addressed. There is a difference in treatment. This creates arbitrariness. After all, there is no specific criterion that you can use to exercise or not your right of injunction.

However, an amendment has been submitted to address the criticism of CD&V. However, the amendment does not fundamentally change anything. There is still the power of the Minister to intervene. For us, it is still a violation of the Constitution.

CD&V has complained that the infringement is a little less. Ladies and gentlemen, it is very simple. The Constitution cannot be violated a little bit: either the Constitution has been violated or it has not been violated; or the separation of powers has been violated or it has not been violated. You cannot offend them a little.

Unfortunately, the story will not be done. Per ⁇ the Constitutional Court will one day have to decide on this discussion. If the Constitutional Court does not follow the solution established by the amendment, it is the evidence itself that the entire discussion returns again to the Chamber and Senate. If necessary, the social debate can be restarted.

Colleagues, a third reason why we cannot approve the present draft is the change in the composition of the Criminal Enforcement Court. The composition changes. In some cases, there will be five instead of three members. Two professional judges are added.

In the memorandum of explanation it is very clear why the Minister wants a modified composition. In fact, it literally writes that in the composition of three magistrates – one professional magistrate and two assessors – the two assessors can place the professional magistrate in the minority. She thus fears that the two assessors want to go in a certain direction that the professional magistrate does not want to go. Therefore, it solves the problem by adding two correctional judges, in the hope that they will, of course, be much stricter and that thus the assessors will no longer be able to simply put the judiciary into their hands.

As if that was the case. We have never received signals from the field that this was a problem. On the contrary, when we organize hearings, we hear from the magistrates of the criminal enforcement courts that they have a very good cooperation with their assessors, often judging unanimously and keeping the same opinion. You want to strengthen the judiciary. That is your sole goal, but it is no more or less than a motion of mistrust to the current criminal enforcement courts.

With regard to the sentences of more than 30 years, life sentences, coupled with a disposal of the Criminal Enforcement Court, now unanimousness will be required, which is not only again a motion of distrust, but also a danger, colleagues. In fact, it means that, in a composition of five members, three professional judges and two assistants, one member of the criminal enforcement court has a blocking minority. If a member systematically opposes any form of release or condition, a conditional release shall never be pronounced. Thus, a veto right is granted to each of the five members of the Criminal Enforcement Court. This is absolutely not a healthy situation. I wonder what the Constitutional Court will think about this.

Fourth, the abolition of automation has not yet been discussed here today, but it has almost fallen into it. Today, a procedure will be initiated automatically, at the initiative of the prison director. Tomorrow it will no longer be the case. In this regard, I must raise some concerns. It is not illogical that a detainee himself indicates whether he wishes to submit that application, or if he wishes to be released under conditions, but the detainee must be sufficiently informed.

If one now leaves the automation, but does not ensure proper information provision to the detainees, then one will have a difference between the detainees who are well accompanied, who can still resort to lawyers and the file of close follow-up, and other detainees, who may have been in prison for 10, 15 years, have forgotten, are in a forgotten pit and no longer have assistance in the practice of lawyers. Sometimes they may forget to submit the application. They may never even know. This is also a fundamental problem.

On the other hand, I also lack a number of provisions aimed at improving the situation of victims. We submitted amendments to the committee. They were all rejected by the majority. This is a pity, because it was intended to strengthen the victims’ position and involve them in the process of conditional release earlier, so that they could communicate their wishes and aspirations earlier, and so that the prosecutor’s office, before giving advice, could get acquainted with the victims’ views.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will conclude with a few conclusions.

It is clear that this is firefighting legislation. Why it all has to go so quickly is clear. Marc Dutroux will appear for the first time before the Criminal Enforcement Court. One wants to give a very clear signal and put the law to vote before Marc Dutroux appears for the first time before the Criminal Enforcement Court, even though this law will not apply to him when the case is dealt next week.

This law will create difficulties in practice. We all know the law-Lejeune, which has become a concept. Everyone is still talking about it, even though it no longer exists. After the law-Lejeune, there will now be the law-Turtelboom, which one could also call “the law of the great distrust of justice.”

You will probably be proud of it, Mrs. Minister, but this law is a draft that is already being sprayed out by the actors today. Let us hope that this law-Turtelboom will not become as old as the law-Lejeune, because then it is not well-set with our justice and with the execution of penalties in our country.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the FDF parliamentarians will resolutely vote against these two texts of bills.

First, after comparison with the text of the Government Declaration of 1 December 2011, it turns out that the projects go far beyond the scope of the General Policy Declaration. Two or three crimes were targeted, it is true ⁇ scandalous: the rape, the murder, the abduction of minors, insofar as they resulted in death. Here, there are not all these limits: we wanted to make a text of sensationalism in relation to the public opinion. This is not at all a text that meets a legal need.

Today, within the existing legal framework, there is the possibility to ensure that a Dutroux never leaves prison. There was no legislative void justifying that all of a sudden, all affairs ceasing, would have to legislate. I recall that these are process laws, directly applicable, including to detainees already convicted and who, at the time of their conviction, could not suspect the evolution of conditions of conditional release.

This will ⁇ lead the courts to be even more cautious in sentencing the penalties legally provided, aware of the consequences that these exceptional procedural laws introduce as new arrangements. We will probably see, in a few years, that the unanimous protest of law practitioners against these two bills has resulted in their non-application. It is therefore simply a law of satisfaction in relation to a current of public opinion, without serious legal reason.

Traditionally, one or one Justice Minister should be interpelled by the reaction and unanimous protest of all law practitioners. One or a Minister of Justice should be listening to law practitioners: this is the usual relationship, not necessarily to satisfy corporatist demands – in this case there is no corporatist demand, it does not concern the status of the bar or magistrates: it concerns the conception, the very philosophy that one makes of the application of penalties in a democratic system.

We will oppose the arguments that I reiterate and which I have also heard from some colleagues.

First of all, this undermines the very concept of conditional release. A major evolution had taken place in our law: it ensured that all detainees were treated equally with regard to the chance – not even a certainty – of obtaining conditional release. Nothing like that will still be possible. The most advised, the most financially capable, to go asking for conditional release, that is, ⁇ the most crapulous of the detainees, will ⁇ be before the court of enforcement of sentences. The most paumed, all the unemployed, all those who are faced with mental health problems – and there are so many in Belgian prisons – will, without doubt, be unable to carry out the procedural steps, even if there may be a prison director to say, six months before the expiry of the deadline: “Don’t forget to try to introduce your application.” This is, therefore, a regression from the major evolution we had introduced into our legal system.

Then, as has been pointed out, it will be more difficult to obtain his conditional release, in some cases, before the penitentiary court, since it will be composed of five magistrates and that, sometimes, a person will have been sentenced to a very heavy penalty by the decision of a single magistrates, but that it will have to wait for a concordant decision of the five magistrates of the penitentiary court. I am not sure that this will resist the control of the Constitutional Court for a long time. How can we explain that in order to be condemned in court to a very heavy sentence, we sometimes find ourselves in front of a single magistrate, and that in order to obtain his conditional release, after having purgeed for many years, we must obtain the agreement of five magistrates. This is completely disproportionate. This has no other purpose than to satisfy, it is believed, the expectation of a public opinion.

I am very doubting about the fact that, in addition, the five members will allow themselves to be guided by the will of the government to always look for the magistrate or counselor who would oppose. Since we are not even sure yet that in the five magistrates, there is one who opposes, we reserve the possibility for the minister to go to cassation.

I warn you and wish you good luck! First, I am not at all sure that the Court of Cassation will take advantage of this game, that it will look with a favorable eye at the appeals brought on the minister’s order. When you know the susceptibility of magistrates in terms of their autonomy, impartiality and independence, to say that it will be on appeal requested by the minister that the magistrates of the Court of Cassation will have to decide, I advise you to think twice before asking the Prosecutor General to introduce an appeal in cassation.

More fundamentally, I think you do not constitutionally have that power. I know that mr. Landuyt, always very creative on the legal level – with a certain form of intellectual perversity when it is necessary to justify the bad causes – said that it is especially not necessary to refer to Article 151 of the Constitution, that the power of injunction does not apply, that it is quite something else: it is the autonomy of the executive in the execution of penalties. This would be part of the executive’s prerogatives.

Nevertheless, in our procedural system, we have decided to entrust the conditional release to a court. An important advance of law in our country is that we have therefore revised the concept of considering conditional release no longer a favor but a right, that it is no longer decided by the Minister of Justice but by a court. The reintroduction of the executive power in the context of a judicial decision seems to me very random.

Indeed, it is not, as in the power of injunction, to ask the prosecutor’s office to eventually implement public action, which does not prejudice decisions, which does not interfere with judicial decisions, but it is here to question the authority of a court by imposing it to introduce an appeal in cassation. All this is disproportionate, exaggerated.

All of this, according to Mr. Landuyt, is under parliamentary control, the few times when the Minister of Justice introduces an appeal in cassation, she will be immediately interpelled and her criteria, the constancy of her jurisprudence in the introduction of a appeal in cassation will be asked. It makes no sense, strictly no sense!

We will have interpellations to say sometimes to the minister: "But you have not been in cassation! Why didn’t you go there?” “Because I didn’t judge, in that case, that I should go there.” by Tollé! But don’t worry, with the help of a press that will like to polemize on the subject: “How, you didn’t go to the cassation, while it was this infamous character who was condemned?” “Oh, maybe I forgot to look closer at his dossier.”

This is a total gender confusion between executive, legislative and judicial power. This will harm the serenity of the exercise of judicial power when it will one day come before the European Court of Human Rights, because that is where this farce and catch will end! And I have no doubt that at that time, the judges of the European Court of Justice will read with interest the considerations of Mr. Landuyt, but I fear he's not very convincing in front of them. I do not doubt that he will defend himself his very particular legal theory.

Furthermore, I read in the report that, to justify itself, Minister Turtelboom told us that the power of injunction, "in its essence", consists in asking for a judicial file to be examined again. I, the definitions "by essence", are legal theories that I do not know very well, that I discover and that demonstrate that all this is very relative and, for all to say, quite unfounded on the legal level.

Therefore, for all these reasons, and also considering that there may be a reason to dedicate magistrates – which are so rare in our judicial system – to other priority tasks, rather than bringing them into a five-member court, these projects should be rejected.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, for all clarity: I will reassure colleague Van Hecke. I have no ambition to make a law-Turtelboom, I have only ambition to carry out reforms. I especially hope that we all have the ambition not to name laws by names of people who could hurt the victims. I hope that from the bottom of my heart.

I have heard a lot of criticism today, not only in Parliament but also outside. I have heard solutions and concrete suggestions from some, but unfortunately not from everyone. I also hear a lot of big words about steak flame policy, but to anyone who says so, I recommend reading the government agreement. It was approved on 6 December 2011 and contains a passage that exactly corresponds to the present draft law. If there are subsequent concrete cases that cross that legislative work and the will of six political parties, that may be regrettable for the perception, but I fully support this reform. I advise everyone who talks about the political flame to read the government agreement again.

Let us look back and look at the law-Lejeune. The law-Lejeune may no longer exist in that capacity, but I am talking about the philosophy with which it was created in 1888, 125 years ago. Then ideas about conditional liberation circulated on the basis of legislation that had already been established in our neighboring countries, which Lejeune himself was a supporter. The draft law fits into a whole series of social reforms, but at the basis of those social reforms, of course, there were also concrete guidelines, which sometimes prompted.

Today’s bill is preceded by a political debate that has been around for a very long time. The advantage is that today we can draw lessons from that law, which at that time was very transparent and almost the length of a free tribune, ten articles or six hundred words. The law-Lejeune provided for a major renewal by introducing the conditional release for the first time in our country.

The law was subsequently adjusted several times, for example in 1998 with the introduction of the commissions conditional release, which already took over the decision-making power from the minister. That has been a good thing. Later, the law was further amended with the establishment of criminal enforcement courts.

As for the debate on the injunction law, I can say the following.

It is true that a certain article is about it, but that only concerns a possible problem of interpretation, an uncertainty in the legislation, in which some, after reading several articles together, interpret it in such a way that the minister has an injunction right regarding the execution of the penalty, while this is obvious for the prosecution of the penalty. To eliminate this ambiguity, this was included in this draft law on the external legal position.

Colleagues, it is not my ambition to use such article. It is never the ambition of a Minister of Justice to often use the positive injunction right. Whenever my predecessors did this in other files, I am convinced that it happened after thorough knowledge of the matter and after very much reflection and reflection. I will do so too. Furthermore, injunction law does not mean the final decision in a file, but according to this bill that a file can be examined back by Cassation for form errors. Again, it is not the ambition of a minister to exercise the right of injunction, but to remove uncertainties in the legislation.

Looking at the content of the bill, we notice that some thresholds of the law-Lejeune are being adjusted. Heavily convicted persons could previously apply for VI after one-third of the sentence and that is now after half the sentence, so after 15 years instead of 10 years for convicted persons up to 30 years. For recidivists, the period becomes even stricter.

We also adjust the decision-making process of the Criminal Enforcement Court. For the severely convicted, it is logical that this depends on an independent judge, but it is also good that judges in all independence decide unanimously and therefore all agree on whether someone can apply for the VI or not.

Some say there has never been an investigation before, but there is a report from the NICC that makes the analysis of the criminal enforcement courts. That report, from the summer of 2012, even stipulates that a criminal enforcement court is stricter than the treatment by the executive power. According to the NICC, 40 % of the refusal was made by the penalty enforcement court, while for the executive power it was only 10 %. Therefore, reports have been prepared, but they must continue to be evaluated.

Colleague Maingain, of course, one must constantly consult the terrain and continue to consult with it. However, I am equally convinced that one must also decide at some point. That decision, that intention is in the government agreement. Therefore, it is logical that it is implemented. That is why we will remain in the criminal enforcement courts but there will be an extension from three judges to five who will decide unanimously.

Of course, there is also the point that we find it logical that a convicted self indicates that he wants to apply for a VI. There is no more automation. One must make a request and thus send the signal that one wishes to submit a file. Today we know too many cases where files automatically occur while that will has not been expressed.

There have, of course, also been discussed in the margin of the committee other dossiers, including the role of the victims. I have committed myself to the committee to submit a bill to the government fairly quickly. We are all convinced that the role of victims in the criminal enforcement courts needs to be reviewed. In doing so, of course, we must ensure a very good balance between the victims’ position, on the one hand, and the opportunities for reintegration – which colleague Becq was talking about – and to rebuild a future in society, on the other. These opportunities should not be completely deprived.

Finally, a few words about the numbers. Some have argued that this will apply to almost no one, while others argue that it concerns too many people. The truth is, of course, in the middle. Fortunately, this bill concerns hard convicted people, not thousands of people. I gave the figures to the committee. Today there are 365 people. What it will be in the future is difficult to say. If you look at who is currently in prison, then 365 is the number. The legislation of thresholds applies for the future. So it is at this moment to look at coffee dick to know what impact this will have on the prison population. I hope that by the end of the legislature we will have our additional prison places. However, I am convinced that it is not this target group, with those numbers, that will address the major problems of reducing overpopulation. This solution is found in other files that we have already discussed several times in the committee.

Colleagues, I am convinced that with the present draft law, in which we adjust the thresholds in the law-Lejeune, we meet a question that has long lived in many political parties. We are now taking a first step and, of course, we will not fail to work on this, especially with regard to the situation of the victims, in the short term.

Mr. Speaker, to all those who have said that a major reform is needed, I answer that at some point we must also cut down the knots. There has been a lot of thought and debate about the proposed draft, both within and outside the political world, over the past ten to fifteen years. Today, I think it is time to put this bill to vote.