Proposition 53K2712

Projet de loi relatif aux sanctions administratives communales.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

March 19, 2013

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

administrative sanction mediator fine municipality young person public order offence rights of the defence social problem alternative sentence

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo LDD

Abstained from voting

VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Bernard Clerfayt (MR) voted to reject.
• Olivier Maingain (MR) voted to reject.
• Damien Thiéry (MR) voted to reject.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

May 30, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, I am pleased to see that you are not yet “GAST”. After all the text messages, emails and tweets we have received, we are here today to pass a very important law. You all look good.

I have the honor of reporting on the draft law on municipal administrative sanctions, which we have discussed in the Committee on Home Affairs at various meetings. At the meeting of 27 March 2013, Mr Jadot’s request to hold hearings on the present draft was rejected by 13 votes against 1. The committee decided to obtain a written opinion from various agencies and groups. These opinions were made available to the members. The Minister referred to the implementation of the government agreement on the present draft and outlined the strengths of the draft during the general discussion. I will not repeat them, you can read them. In my report, I would like to focus on the elements that the various political groups have put forward in the committee.

At the general discussion, the speaker of the N-VA group expressed satisfaction that the discussion of this draft could finally be started and that many elements from their own bill can be found in the draft. Nevertheless, Mr. Degroote regretted that some elements cannot be found. For example, his group is of the opinion that addressing public drunkenness and domicile fraud is not possible through administrative sanctions. However, these are facts that are virtually no longer prosecuted by the parks and therefore would fit within the system of the GAS law.

Mr Thiébaut expressed satisfaction on behalf of his group that the draft could be dealt with, but had some concerns about certain aspects of it. For example, the speaker had questions about the ultimate responsibility in the performance of a community service and he also had questions about the place ban that can be imposed. Also working with a protocol agreement between parket and municipality raises questions.

The CD&V group expressed satisfaction with the finding that the draft upholds the principle of municipal autonomy and leaves room for the principle of subsidiarity. In addition, the CD&V Group welcomed the possibilities provided by the draft to impose alternative sanctions through community service, and the mediation procedure, which remains mandatory for minors. This makes it possible for municipal administrative sanctions to have an educational aspect. As regards the place ban, CD&V regretted that its own proposal to continue working in accordance with the system of the Football Act in the context of distress in recreational areas was not prevented in the present draft.

Mrs Schyns also points out in her presentation the transparency that comes with the new draft and the continued adherence to the principles of subsidiarity and municipal autonomy. She welcomes the alternative measures provided for in the draft and the specific framework for minors. However, she also asks questions. For example, she has observations on the application of the immediate collection and on the fact that this requires the consent of the infringer. Regarding the obligation to provide information, Ms Schyns also asks what additional means should be used for the publication of the Rules of Procedure if it applies to minors from 14 years of age.

Ms. Brems emphasizes that her group is ⁇ critical of the present draft. For example, many aspects are problematic for them, such as the reduction of age, the introduction of the place ban, the increase of the amounts of the fines and the self-financing of the municipal security policy. At the same time, the draft does not do a number of things, such as ending a series of absurd and inhumane sanctions. The speaker emphasizes that the observation of the Flemish Jeugdraad was absolutely not taken into account. According to her, minors would therefore be best removed from the scope of the GAS Act.

The spokeswoman of Ecolo-Groen also points out the conflict with the principle of the rule of law, in which the judge imposes penalties and in which the rights of defence also apply.

For her group, Ms. Galant indicates that municipal administrative sanctions are a valuable tool to compensate for the inertia of the judicial apparatus in part. According to the speaker, the present design makes the system even more efficient and transparent. The law now provides an opportunity for municipalities to act quickly and coherently, while the prosecution by Justice often lags behind. However, questions arise in some of the mixed infringements. According to Ms. Galant, for cases such as strokes and injuries, Justice should best assume its responsibility and still provide for the prosecution of those facts.

Mr Vanvelthoven emphasizes that the draft is an adaptation of an existing legal framework in which the municipalities already act today. It also applies to minors today. He does not immediately understand the many points of criticism of the Green Fraction, because there is a broad social support to act against local distress. The often nonsensical examples of sanctions, apparently sometimes imposed, are not reasons for him to question the system anonymously. Mr Vanvelthoven emphasizes the importance of dialogue, in particular with the local youth wire, in the preparation of the municipal regulations. The speaker also highlights the importance of mediation, alternative sanctions and parental involvement in sanctions against minors.

Mr. Logghe expresses some concerns. For example, his group considers that the mixed infringements do not belong to an administrative system and that Justice should act without prejudice to this. This applies in particular to more serious infringements, such as strokes and injuries. The introduction of the protocol agreement will, according to the speaker, result in the Justice Department shifting further tasks. However, the GAS system has the advantage, according to Mr. Logghe, that this will end impunity. The reduction of the age limit to 14 years should be addressed by the introduction of a genuine youth sanction law.

Mr Somers points out the important social debate that has been created by the present draft. According to him, after all, the discussion is about organizing the viability of the local entity. Rules are there to guarantee the freedom of others and this is always a difficult exercise. This draft provides a framework that needs to be further completed at the local level. The speaker warns against making caricatures of this legislation. For example, the figures from its own city show that the GAS is used only in limited measures. Administrative law has existed for a very long time and is part of our legal system.

The next speaker, Mr Jadot, on behalf of his group, is ⁇ dissatisfied with the present draft. He also regrets that the committee has rejected his request to organise hearings and points out that his group itself has organized hearings with a number of organisations. Their opinions on the design were ⁇ negative, says Mr Jadot. Mr Jadot also notes that the current system of GAS fines has never been subject to any evaluation. The system can only be acceptable if it is decided by an independent body and if it is based on objectively established facts. Mr Jadot also does not understand the need for the draft, given the imminent communitarianization of the youth sanction law. He also advocates for the strengthening of the judicial authorities so that they can do their work better.

Mr Clerfayt notes that the system of GAS fines responds to the call of citizens to respond more efficiently to the daily trouble and problems in cities and municipalities. However, this system is only a secondary solution. Ideally, it would be more work of first-line justice. The speaker also points out a number of legal imperfections in the draft. He is concerned that a repair legislation will be needed soon.

In her response, the Minister emphasizes that the bill is based on a fundamental concept, in particular respect, respect for both the rules of law and for fellow citizens. Respect is the most important value in social engagement, says the minister. Racist or sexist comments among young people deserve to be sanctioned. Young people are in no way the victims of the GAS regulation, but enjoy the rightful protective measures provided by the GAS. With regard to young people, the GAS mechanism is primarily a pedagogical project and not an instrument of punishment.

The democratic debate is thus now not only held in the belly of the Parliament but will also take place in the municipal councils. There is, therefore, a double democratic debate in which all actors can make their voice heard. Local youth organizations can also be involved.

The Minister also notes that under the Act of 8 April 1965 on the protection of youth, the prosecution of minors who have committed an offence defined as a crime and the redress of the damage caused by this fact, administrative sanctions may be imposed on minors. For example, a stadium ban can be imposed from the age of 14. It is remarkable that some members criticize the proposed draft, but not the provisions of the Act of 1965.

The criticism that the bill does not respect the youth and chooses a repressive approach in the face of minors, therefore, does not cut wood. Young people still get the freedom they need for their self-development, but to certain behaviors a response from society fits.

Regarding the place ban, the Minister stresses that the measure, as provided for in the draft law, is clearly a measure of special administrative police. It should be argued that the temporary ban for repeated infringements can only be considered as a measure of administrative police and not as a sanction, since the measure does not involve any decision.

Local mediation is defined as a measure that allows the offender to find, through the intervention of a mediator, a means to repair or compensate for the damage suffered in order to end the conflict. The offer of mediation is mandatory for minors and optional for adults.

Mediation shall be carried out by a qualified mediator, who may neither be the determining official nor the sanctioning official. In addition, it will be possible for municipalities to employ a recognised mediation service.

The protocol agreement between the municipality and the parquet provides the possibility of customization at the local level, with a certain range of manoeuvre in the face of local problems. Of course, the parquets are now often no longer able to pursue certain forms of discomfort. This is ⁇ the case in big cities.

The draft law also pays the necessary attention to the exchange of information and the deadlines for it. The Public Prosecutor’s Office can always draw a file to itself within a period of 24 hours, although the protocol agreement stipulates that the municipality applies the GAS system for that type of infringement. Thus, there is sufficient flexibility and speed in the procedure and the involvement of the parquet remains ensured.

The Minister would like to insist on assuring the members that a periodic, two-year review of the scheme to be introduced is provided. The evaluation will cover in particular the register of administrative sanctions, ensuring that it contains only reliable data.

Furthermore, the Minister disputes the correctness of the criticism of the lack of an evaluation of the existing scheme, since the administration has already carried out such an evaluation in 2010.

This was a fairly comprehensive report. However, I found that it is important for the current important bill that the arguments of each group are presented before we begin the debate.

I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, we support the draft on municipal administrative sanctions. We supported it in the committee and will also support it later at the end of the plenary session. Given the mass media engagement, many might have expected something different from us. They might have thought that we would lead a classical opposition. On the contrary, we support the design.

However, our support does not mean that we do not have some serious concerns about the design. For our concerns, we must go back to the history of creation.

In 1999, municipal administrative sanctions were introduced for the first time. They came there at the request of the parquets, who were sub-employed for certain subjects and had too much workload.

So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s not blow the wind. The background on which the matter is based is indeed the failure of Justice. We do not need to blow winds there.

We have the image of a sick justice in our country. A symptom of sick Justice is just the fact that Justice admits not to be able to deal with everything more and asking party to be for something new, namely the administrative sanctions.

A disease must be combated. This has not been achieved due to the differences of views among successive governments. If we were able to do this, we would not have this debate today. They are trying to do something about it. He tries to heal the sick Lady Justice. What do we fix? Everything is announced, but it is carried out very fragmentarily. The judicial reform is announced, but the useful Unified Court – which would be very good for Justice – will not come. The execution of the penalties and the adaptation of the law-Lejeune occurs very fragmentarily. The necessary minimum service is still not provided. The judicial retardation is again high. High speed law and the informatization of the judiciary are missing.

Justice is sick. Therefore, the GAS is now being invoked, but it is not, in our opinion, the comprehensive solution. We consider it a patch, not on a wooden leg, but on a wound. It is the first aid for accidents. The GAS can sort effect, which has already been demonstrated by practice. In 2009, ten years after the start of the GAS, 7 out of 10 Flemish municipalities were connected to the GAS system. In 2012 this number increased to 83%.

I looked at the figures of two zones in West Flanders: the urban zone Roeselare with 1,200 dossiers annually and a rural police zone MIDOW with about 150 dossiers. On average, 4 to 5 % of the files concern minors. Of the 1,200 files, only six gave grounds for proceedings before the police court, not for some futility, but for example for the closure of a housing case.

The practice of the past ten years has proved that the GAS system for the control can have results, at least if it is used judgmentally. Now comes the draft law, which was already discussed in the committee and which is now presented in the plenary session. Suddenly, many feel addressed, as if something entirely new is coming upon us, which will lead to many problems and that will even lead to acidification.

The question that must be asked is whether there is now something new. Apart from the fact that everything is poured into a law, in a separate law containing administrative sanctions, while it was formerly part of the municipal law, there is nothing new. The system has existed since 1999 and there are now some adjustments, some refinements and some extensions that are poured into a separate law.

As a result of these adjustments, all cartoons now come up. The debate is shifting and the essence threatens to have to deviate from those caricatures. I would like to give an example of those cartoons. Two days ago, I read in the press an article in which it was stated that one is now going to make bell drag if it is criminalized: “You can no longer do bell drag. Where are they dealing with the love of God?”

That is nothing new. I have a police regulation here from 1990, i.e. from 23 years ago. Article 125 of that police code states: “It is forbidden to knock or knock on the doors with the intention of disturbing or harassing the residents.” New in 2013? I have my doubts.

Have you ever heard in the period between 1990 and 2013 that the problem of bell drag was front page news? Would there have been a lot of processes-verbal made about that bell drag or would there have been cases of bell drag before the police court? I have heard very little or even nothing about it. Per ⁇ in that period the local field guard, when he received such complaints, has sometimes raised a warning finger.

I have a few other examples from that regulation: “Song singers and fakirs are not allowed to enter the market.” Article 129 of that same regulation states: “It is forbidden to appear in public masked, disguised or dressed. “Anyone who wears a disguise with the permission of the mayor must not carry a stick.” – Sinterklaas

I just want to show that we can make a lot of such caricatures. We heard a few of them in the committee. I almost needed a handkerchief. Maybe I will need that cloth again today if we have to listen to such cartoons.

Such things also existed in the past, and they never gave rise to front-page news. What was the intention at the time? One wanted a framework within which one could – not should – act, or the proverbial stick behind the door. What is the intention now? Even now one wants a frame, the stick behind the door.

There is also municipal autonomy. The problems that occur in one community are not the same as in another community. I repeat, however, that all municipal governments should handle the means judgmentally. They must use their common sense.

Finally, another element should be mentioned, namely the judicial control. If such a caricatural sanction has been issued, I find it regrettable that it was not handled by the police court. If it really is a caricature, the police judge will judge on the basis of the proverb de minimis non curat praetor.

We must also take into account behavioral changes. Some things were obvious before. It was obvious, for example, that one should respect property, that one should not leave waste on the streets, that one should not go around with loud music on the streets, that one should not plaster at doors, and that one should not damage the tombs. For some, such things no longer appear to be so obvious. Shouldn’t we expect people to accept such behavior?

With that as a starting point, it should simply be said that there is a balance exercise between, on the one hand, a sense of responsibility and action against deviant behavior, and, on the other hand, a sense of laissez passer, in which one leaves everything as it is and thus creates a sense of impunity.

Our vision and that of many managers is that responsibility for society must be assumed. Coexistence must be promoted and made possible, otherwise we will face impunity.

I can give a few practical examples. I have been the mayor of West Flemish Dentergem for several years. Over the years, I have been in contact with various members of civil society organisations. I have regularly visited youth leaders who complained that their youth halls were complaining, that the windows were thrown in, and that vandalism was committed. I met members of the Family Union, who complained that here and there in the vicinity was left waste. I met citizens who complained that there was damage to the tombs of their relatives, caused by a fifteen-year-old. Should they be labeled as sour and told to go home? Or should we say that the problem lies with Justice, that we will ensure that Justice runs well and that we will submit draft laws for that? Should we say that in three, four, five or six years the problem will be solved and that they must come back? This is not said to the citizens. What one needs to do is act and, to the extent possible, provide for a solution. In that sense, I feel the speech tube of all those members of the middle society, who themselves have already asked for such solutions.

The VVSG expresses it very well. She speaks about GAS fines as “a working procedure for large and small municipalities, with a view to local policy choices and adequate legal protection for the offenders”. Both in rural and urban areas, one can adjust it as one wants and one can give it a fulfillment on its own. The golden rule – I beam and repeat it – is to use common sense so that cartoons do not rise.

I wonder if the system is perfect. No, the system is not perfect. Is there a system that is perfect? I leave the question open, but I don’t think. But should we, because the system is not perfect and problems may arise, burn or throw away everything? This also applies to justice. Sometimes judicial errors are committed. Should we abolish the rule of law? and no. Do police offices always run according to the booklet? and no. Do we no longer need the police? and no. We should not throw the child away with the bath water.

It is important that the draft law provides that after a certain period of time the application of the scheme is evaluated. That evaluation can be very important in view of reforms to restore our sick Justice and allow us to see what needs to be preserved and what needs to be adapted.

Finally, I would like to talk about some substantive aspects. The emphasis is placed on strengthening mediation. That can be beneficial. When one determines that a fifteen or sixteen-year-old has damaged something, a GAS is not always necessary. There can and can be a mediation. If the involvement of the parents increases and there is an agreement on compensation or recovery, no GAS needs to come. All this is possible and it must remain possible.

For the involvement of the parents is provided in the design, as well as for the presence of a lawyer. As previously cited, a periodic review has been provided, which will be important when we talk later about the means to re-heal our Justice.

The draft law stipulates that the fines will be increased. However, this does not mean that any official determination must result in a higher penalty. However, the measure gives the sanctioning official the opportunity to impose, for example, in repeated cases, a higher fine than was previously possible. What does the experience teach? For some hard-learning persons, a fine of 60 euros does not impress. A higher fine creates an additional opportunity for the sanctioning official, but it is not an obligation. It is like in criminal law, where the fines, for example, range from 100 to 5 000 euros and the judge can apply as he considers advisable.

There is also a place ban. Some say that it doesn’t have to, because the mayor becomes the local sheriff. This is ⁇ not the intention. We were in favour of the ban. This is reflected in one of our proposals. A ban can be good. It will only happen to the operator of a catering accident that there is a fighting and that he gets the stings on the body, because the person concerned is there again the next week. A temporary ban can be useful.

We had also submitted an amendment to restrict democratic protests, demonstrations, up to a maximum of 150 euros. This amendment was not accepted. Green’s colleagues had also submitted an amendment on the protests, with which we did not agree.

We also found that there was a missed opportunity, ⁇ a mind-pist for the future. One thing that the municipalities are located close to is the home fraud. I have talked about this with the Minister during previous discussions. She stated that this was an interesting thought track, but that she was not stopped. Per ⁇ after 2014 we will still have work at the store. Domicile fraud is common and costs the treasury a lot of money. Proper action against this would allow a lot of money to flow back to the treasury. They have missed the opportunity to do something about this through administrative sanctions. For the parks, this matter is the least urgent.

I think there are also very good elements for the colleagues of the Greens. Consider the mixed violations, article 537, the destruction of trees. This can now be addressed through the gas. You must be very satisfied. Community service is also provided, which can be very useful if, for example, someone is caught on lock-outs. In this regard, I think of the example of a person who was caught on lock-offs a few weeks ago and who, instead of paying a fine, cleaned up garbage in the municipality for two or three afternoons. So it is a system that can work and I think you should definitely be in favour of it.

I decide . We support this design because we find that in the short term it can provide a number of solutions to problems that need to be solved in the short term and not in the long term. However, we see this as EHBO, as first aid in accidents. After all, we must continue to work to heal the sick lady Justitia. The N-VA wants to carry out all possible interventions on Ms. Justitia in the future, of course with the intention of making her healthy. Thus you see that we take our responsibility and do not stand aside.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Degroote, Mrs. Brems will intervene thoroughly later, but I would like to say the following.

You, of course, try to seduce us by talking about sloping, destroying trees, and so on. Of course, these are unacceptable things. You said we make cartoons, but you can’t make cartoons yourself. You present things as if the opponents of the GAS apparently have no problem with the destruction of graves and so on, and that there should be no action for them. The opposite is true. The problem is much wider and you know that very well, because you have said it too.

Why are mayors taking advantage of the gas system? Because justice does not follow up on a number of major violations. That is the essence of the case. Then you can do two things. Or it will ensure that justice works better, that the right priorities are set and that cases that are truly unacceptable in the community are also prosecuted, which then follows a decision by an independent judge. Or they do not do that and they say to the mayors that they will be given more powers little by little, since 1999. In this way, a kind of parallel justice is built at the municipal level.

This is not the solution for us. We must therefore strive to strengthen the courts and prosecutors so that they can act. Therefore, it is a very bad signal to expand this legislation now, because then you give the signal to Justice that it is not a problem if they can not follow up on the matters, because the mayors will do it. Then you fall into a vicious circle.

Hence our principled protest against the expansion of this system.

That is your right and I understand this, but we want short-term solutions. We also know that justice needs to be addressed in the long term. They are dealing with it. We have our concerns and our alternative proposals for that, but it is not a solution to tell the people that Justice needs to be reformed and to send them to walk in the meantime.

We now want concrete solutions for the people. Like many others, we also hope that something happens in the judiciary. Moreover, it was ⁇ not my intention to seduce you.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, the municipal administrative sanctions are not at all a new tool. It has already been in place for many years in a large number of municipalities with different results.

In the context of a justice embroiled by the increasing judicialization of conflicts and lacking new means to deal with this embroidery, it must be acknowledged that in some places, the system of administrative sanctions has a significant impact in combating the feeling of impunity of the perpetrators of small incivilities who participate in the degradation of living together.

The majority agreement provided for a full review of the legal basis on which they are based by clarifying and framing their functioning. The project put to the vote today is the implementation of this agreement.

Despite the long months of work that find their outcome here, it would be exaggerated to say that the text fully satisfies the socialist group. The fact that the current text shows significant advances compared to the current situation is undeniable, and we welcome this. I think in particular of the mediation process that becomes mandatory for minors, and which is welcome. To the extent that a reduction in the age of the punishable minors is considered, the whole process can only be considered in an educational dimension. If mediation as such does not sufficiently guarantee that it is precisely in the sense of this philosophy that the text will be effectively applied, a signal is nevertheless given in that sense. Likewise, we are pleased to have been able to obtain guarantees on the educational, or even pedagogical character of citizen benefits, a sort of alternative sanction to the fines imposed in this context. The involvement of the youth sector in the implementation of these sanctions therefore seems to us indispensable in order to avoid any deviation.

Mr. Mr. I hear well that you say that mediation, citizen benefits, etc., will be possible. But in fact, the field players told us that it was very complicated and very expensive to organize, which is why it is very little used.

One speaker, just recently, said very prettyly that people would be sent to collect the waste, but in fact, this is not how it is happening. In a whole series of cases, it is not permitted to do so; it must be framed, the necessary uniform is available, etc.

So it is very nice at the level of speech, but you know well that it will not be applied on the ground. What will be applied is what is now applied: fines.

I have been the mayor for 12 years and I can tell you that in my municipality, the alternative will be applied. We will use the means to do so. We will do it because it is important for us and for the citizens.

I was going to answer your question in my speech, Madame Genot. I am all the more convinced that the entire arrangement is based on the apparent ability of the arrangement to self-sufficient from a financial point of view. Now, let’s not be fooled – I agree with you on this: this mechanism of mediation and citizen benefits will have a significant cost for the municipalities.

While I have great confidence in the municipal authorities – and for reason – and in their ability to address the issues of this order with measure and prudence, I can only fear to see some entities condemned to apply a number policy to meet this goal of self-financing. Each municipality must take its responsibilities. The text of the law does not impose anything on municipalities, but proposes them to use a framework.

Madame Genote, you are not going to repeat all the debate that took place in the committee!

The law does not apply. We had proposed that all municipalities should be obliged to create the mechanism to be able to organize these citizen benefits. But, as we see in the field at the moment, this is absolutely not the case. You say that some mayors will do it, but in reality, it will not.

I am not with you, Madame Genot!

We proposed that it be mandatory everywhere but this amendment was rejected. If you are in favor of these citizens’ benefits, why didn’t you support the amendment we proposed?

If I can afford to answer, because it was not necessary! If you read the law, you ⁇ ’t say that. You seem to say that it will not be applied.

It must be mandatory!

Can I express myself?

Madame Genot, I ask you to listen to the arguments of others and not always interrupt them!

Madame Genot, what you say proves how much you do not know the text! In the case of a minor, mediation is mandatory. The minor will never have to pay a fine.

In addition, the municipality is obliged to work with approved bodies, in particular by the Communities, in mediation with professionals. There will therefore be an obligatory mediation with authorized persons!

I do not know if the Minister knows the text of the law well. (The Protests )

Let us be correct! The text for the major does not require municipalities to organize mediation and citizen service. For us, this is a problem. We have submitted an amendment to ensure that this is the case. Like the mr. Thébaut said, since it is expensive, many municipalities will not do so. We regret that this amendment was rejected.

We understood it well!

I would like to return for a moment to the question of youth, for some will not fail to say that this is a whole project directed against minors, while there is absolutely nothing, and that it would present young people as the new dangerous class. This is obviously excessive and I am delighted that, contrary to what some hoped, we have not taken the way of sanctioning by this means school absentism, which would have totally deviated the very idea that we are making ourselves of public education.

Moreover, I am reassured to find that the majority of the parties have adhered, in the Committee of the Interior, to the principle of allowing the consultation of the youth representative organizations in the preparation of municipal regulations, since it is at this level that the decision to apply SAC to minors is finally taken or not. This is a step of accountability that allows, even before the implementation of the project, to establish a dialogue between the local authorities and a significant fraction of the population that does not always feel heard.

Mr. Thiébaut, Mrs. Genot wants to intervene.

I am surprised!

Mr. Thiébaut, to say that we will consult young people in the municipalities is provocation! You know very well that young people have requested to be consulted in this parliament. You refused by pretexting lack of time, etc. Then we continued to work on the text four weeks later for all sorts of reasons x or y. Therefore, we had all the time to agree to audition the youth organizations that requested it. And you refused those hearings. Also, now shake a sweater by saying that this will be done at the municipal level, I find this insulting!

Are we going to repeat the discussion here or will each group express its opinion?

Mr. President, I thank you.

Mrs. Genot, we are many to intervene because we will not let you say everything and anything!

First, with regard to this mediation story you are invoking, until today, the sanctions system did not provide for compulsory mediation for 16-18 years of age and it did not bother you! It is shocking to see that when you introduce a mandatory mediation system, you suddenly have a problem! I do not understand your logic. We had a device that was anything but respectful of this educational, pedagogical dimension; it is modified to add this mandatory dimension for minors, and you criticize it. You are not consistent.

Ask yourself about what you did before and what was anything but favorable to mediation. (The applause)

I would like to comment on Mr. by Thiébaut. I hope that the Minister of Youth Aid of the French Community will, for these policies as for others, have a bit of scope and associate youth associations with all the policies decided at the level of the communes. There is this case, but there are also others. I am going in the same direction as Mr. Thiébaut and I ask here that Ms. Huytebroeck, who has Youth in her competence, put this dimension in place in the French Community and associate youth associations with municipal policies!

Madame Genot, I send you and your political group back to your responsibilities! (The applause)

The floor is given to Mrs. G. and then to Mr. G. Thébaut, the poor man, is interrupted.

I am sorry, Mr President. There’s a debate and I know you don’t like that.

Let’s be clear, the debate, it is here and today that it takes place! Today we are voting. To say that we will consult the associations later on something that is decided today is to laugh at young people. This is really not respectful!

What you say is not correct. You are fervent defenders of democracy and we too.

In this matter, we have a dual democratic choice: first, a framework that will be voted in our parliament; do not disagree, apart from those of the Greens, I have not heard many objections in this assembly that represents the whole population. Then, once the framework has been decided, it belongs to the municipal autonomy, according to its local democracy, to accept or not to decide on a regulation of sanctions; in addition, once the regulation has been decided, it remains loyal or not to apply it to young people and to associate them at the local level.

Affirming that having envisaged this involvement of mandatory opinion on the part of local youth institutions in the choice of this second democratic debate is useless, this is wrong. and rumors)

We have already held such debates about rejected hearings; if committees have decided to reject hearings, it is a fact. The point. There is no need to rewrite history. Madame Gerkens, it is enough to say it once; it is not necessary to repeat it fifteen times.

Mr. President, I thank you. Being one of the first speakers in such a debate is obviously a slight disadvantage.

I would like to return to the discussion and drafting of municipal regulations by councils because this will be an important moment in the implementation of this bill.

As such, I would like to emphasize that essential elements for effective and harmonious implementation remain to be published by means of decisions. These decisions, both with regard to the mediation services to be organized and the categories of public officials or by a public likely to act as an assessment agent, are indispensable and sensitive. We will follow the writing with the utmost attention. We are looking forward to this from our Minister.

Obviously, we will pay the same attention to the decree proposing the standard convention to be concluded between the municipal authorities and the prosecutors of which they depend, since it is planned that such a standard convention would be defined by decree. Without this convention, it would be impossible to define the framework in which municipalities and parquets will work.

It is also clear that these resolutions must replace the tags placed in the texts and also guarantee the greatest possible uniformity of application from commune to commune. In this regard, I can only draw the attention of the regional authorities on the care with which they will have to ensure their guardianship over the regulations that will emanate from municipal councils, which will make the choice to implement or not implement the arrangement.

In the face of uncertainty about how action will be taken on the ground, I still have to congratulate the majority for having taken care to amend the text for a biennial evaluation through a comprehensive report. This is not a review clause, but, without a doubt, a useful tool for assessing the relevance and effectiveness of an important arrangement, on which the legislator can rely.

Finally, Madame the Minister, dear colleagues, you will have understood that it is not with great enthusiasm that the Socialist Group will vote on this text, which leaves behind important questions on the plan of its implementation. Nevertheless, he will approve it for the benefit of the badges he has placed and remaining attentive to both the arrests that must come to complete it and the evaluation that will be made within two years.

I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, if one opens the newspapers today and follows the media, one would almost think that we are creating a new system here today. Nothing is less true. The system of municipal administrative sanctions has been in place since 1999. That is, it exists exactly fourteen years.

The GAS system has also proved its usefulness over the course of those fourteen years. As of 1 January 2013, 84% of Flemish municipalities have already applied the GAS system. It is therefore good that today we will pour the gas system into a law. This law contains a number of very important safeguards.

First, the guarantee of prevention, the mandatory mediation with minors and the provision of a community service as an alternative sanction.

Secondly, the person concerned can finally, if he considers that he has unjustly received a GAS fine, still go to the juvenile court or the police court.

When I opened the newspapers today, I made a second reflection. It seems that we are voting here today on a law against the youth. Nothing is less true. Young people should be able to play on the playgrounds. They must be able to go out and fuive in their own city, but what happens if those young people no longer find it pleasant to go to a playground because there is dog poop, because there is graffiti sprinkled on the toys, or because the toys are broken? What happens when those young people no longer like to fuive in their own congregation because a small group terrorizes everything, makes it always heable, or makes everything short and small when there is a fuif?

It is to address such situations that occur in practice that we want to use the GAS. These situations can be addressed by playing short on the ball, with a shortened procedure, focusing on prevention.

Colleagues, it must be said that the accident phenomena in Antwerp are absolutely not the same as in, packweg, Ieper. Eighty percent of things will be similar, but twenty percent will be completely different. There is also a line of separation between metropolitan and rural areas in terms of discomfort. That is why measurement is so important. That is why CD&V does not support the plea to make a solid, all-encompassing definition.

Such a definition will never be conclusive. Such a definition will never be able to describe or capture the unwanted behavior that we want to fully address in, for example, Antwerp or Ieper.

We cannot ignore the fact that at various times we are addressed as political responsible about the security or insecurity in our neighborhoods, neighborhoods and municipalities. This uncertainty, or often a subjective sense of uncertainty, finds its ground in the disappearance of social control and social cohesion, in the disappearance of respect for the environment, resulting in decay. People expect us as politicians to act against it. Since 1999 and so far, we have successfully done so in 83% of municipalities.

CD&V attaches great importance to the autonomy of local authorities. Last year municipal elections were held and new municipalities were installed. It is important that those representatives of the population, at a level closest to the citizen, can play the role of local democracy. The elected in the municipal councils have the best feeling to know what is trouble, to know what is loose and how it can be addressed, in debate with the youth and with the civil society.

The law provides for a mandatory backlink to the youth thread if the GAS fines are imposed on 14 year olds. That sentence is actually superfluous in the law, because we would not have to put that obligation into it. After all, any self-respecting board, if it makes a decision of such size, will always link back to the advisory councils in its municipality, such as the youth wire. However, there is a lot of skepticism about this law, there is a lot of criticism about whether or not one trusts that that feedback will happen. Therefore, it is important that it is written in the law that there must be a link back to the youth thread, to the youth associations in each municipality. In this way, there is no discussion possible about the interpretation.

The introduction of municipal administrative sanctions from fourteen years is not an obligation under the law. The municipalities decide for themselves. This will differ from municipality to municipality. In cities and major cities, forty-year-olds may be sanctioned and in rural areas much less.

In the newspapers today we read statements from various mayors who very emphasize that there is no need in their municipality to lower the age. Well, that is good, so much better. Just the mayors, just like the local democracies, are best placed to decide whether or not that legislation should be applied in their municipality, whether or not there are problems with young people, whether or not they want to address certain disability phenomena.

We do not vote today on a reduction in the age of GAS fines in which we are obliged to impose a fine on all fourteen-year-olds throughout Belgium. No, we are voting for a framework law, which gives the municipalities the tools to carry out their own security policy.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Slegers, I would like to ask you a question.

I just hear you say in a fantastic way that we need to talk to the youth lines at the municipal level. Why were they not heard in the committee?

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Dedecker, all parties have met with the Flemish Jeugdraad. They also spoke to various other youth organizations. We have been waiting for more than a year for the present draft. During that year we did our work and talked with various organizations, both internally and externally.

When legislative work comes to the committee, the parties concerned are invited. You talk about the newspaper and say that the press makes a caricature of it. I was not in the committee either.

I do not say that.

Give me a moment. I finish my reasoning. You declare that in the press of the GAS fines a caricature is made. What I read in the press is mostly that all 213 groups – I didn’t even know there were so many – protest that none of them has been heard.

You are currently defending the draft by asserting that it will counter the arbitrariness in the municipalities. I do not believe that in municipalities arbitration is countered. The opposite is true. However, I will later give more explanations on this subject.

Why do you say that it is time for us to counter the arbitrariness at the municipal level, while you are asking here during the legislative work on the subject to invite the 213 organizations and ask what their objections are? That is my question.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give an explanation on the point of the hearings.

It is, of course, true that we did not hold hearings, because – let us not force the truth – the draft has been submitted quite late. We had to wait for a while. We then decided to hold written consultations together.

I must inform you in all honesty and objectivity that, frankly, I also see the benefits of such written consultations. First, the diversity is greater. Second, the relevant bodies should build a consistent argument. I see, frankly, also the benefits in reading the delivered papers. It is often easier to do such a thing.

That being said, it is also true that one should not hinder the other. I do not understand why, after the approval of the present draft, the local consultation should suddenly cease. I hope from the bottom of my heart that there will always be a conversation between the one and the other party.

I will later extend the parliamentary procedure.

Mr. Dedecker, in the parliamentary procedure, I ask myself whether the hearings would have resulted in much more than what has been found so far in the documents in question. The opposite is true in my opinion.

It is easier to place written opinions beside you than an oral meeting.

In a parliament, one hopes that during a discussion each other will be listened, in this case to third parties, that there will be adjustments, that certain suggestions from experiential experts will be included and that they will lead to a dynamic of text adjustment. This has not happened in these. If 213 organizations, an unprecedented mobilisation of civil society, complain that they have not been heard, it is not just a formal invitation to the hearing in the Committee on Home Affairs. You simply did not listen, Mrs. Minister. You did not want to accept their suggestions. The youth organisations and the youth lines in particular have all reason to be skeptical of the promises to hear them at the local level. Will they be listened to there? Or do they put their suggestions aside?

Mr. Bracke, you are the Chairman of the Commission. Written contributions were actually requested and they brought a lot of elements. But you have, after that, received two letters, one of the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking child rights delegates who asked to be heard, the other from Mr. Demotte, Minister of Childhood, who requested the holding of hearings. Again, the debate was chained and these people could not be heard when they asked for it. I find this deplorable.

On this point of things, I think everyone has already been able to speak. There can be regrets, and I suppose that in your respective speeches you will emphasize it, but we will not every time reopen the debate about the fact that there were no hearings. This has been decided at some point, it is a fact. The committee decided by a majority that there would be no hearings, there were no hearings. We are not going to restart the work of the Commission here. We can regret it, but not discuss it.

Are you awake now?

Mrs Brems, you say that there was no listening, but a number of amendments have been made, including the amendment that obligates the youth wire to be consulted when a fine is imposed on minors. This, however, is a major change and may be a response to the observations of civil society organisations. The procedure has also been changed somewhat.

One improvement to this law is that the introduction of the GAS fine from fourteen years provides for an extensive procedure of parental involvement and mediation. Before the procedure for a minor begins, the parents, the minors and the city, in the person of the sanctioning official, will be brought together and the conduct to be sanctioned will be discussed. This is an important educational aspect. Only then will a gas procedure be initiated.

We think that being heard by that younger, together with his parents and if he wants to do so with a lawyer, is still an important aspect that also incorporates legal certainty. If he still wants to go to court, he can.

Our party has insisted on the possibility of cooperation between municipalities, so that there is more uniformity in the GAS regulations. In the various municipalities of the same zone and the same judicial district, a common regulation may be established. This further promotes clarity. This was also a comment from the mediums. The powers of provincial and regional officials on GAS are also now clearly defined.

The draft also provides for the establishment of a municipal register of infringements. One comment from the civil society was also that there is no transparency and follow-up. In the future, we will have statistical data. In the future, we will be able to evaluate in which municipality which fines are applied and how the sanctions or the procedure for the sanctions are effectively applied in the municipality. That is very important.

The initial evaluation will be possible within two years, as there are currently no figures. I have asked several ministers about this, and there are no numbers. This is also an adjustment of the law for the better.

Colleagues, in the last few days we, as Members of Parliament, have been infested with emails, text messages and tweets containing information such as “GAS-Law stands in the way of being young.” Let it be clear, I find it not done that a young man gets a GAS fine because he eats a sandwich on a couch. The same applies to throwing snowballs. If a younger after eating a sandwich on a bench leaves waste around the bench and does not throw it into the trash, then that is inappropriate behavior. And we want to counter the slugs. This, by the way, does not apply only to young people, it applies to everyone, adults and minors.

Absurdities in which one gets a fine for throwing snowballs or for eating a sandwich on a couch, we want to get out of our regulations. This must be screened. These absurdities must be eliminated.

The final question should be: what is trouble in my municipality? And that should be well discussed. The fact that this GAS system exists is indirectly also a protection for young people. Then I gave the example of the playgrounds and the fuives. In this way, the younger will know that when another younger or adult shows inappropriate behavior towards him, that person will be punished for this.

The law is absolutely not directed against young people, but against inappropriate behavior of adults and minors.

Another, often heard criticism is...

I would like to hear you say that you want those absurdities out of the regulations, but what do you think this law does to get these absurdities out of the regulations? This is one of the major problems with the current law. There has been no evaluation, but the 213 organizations have de facto evaluated and identified a lot of absurd, random uses. What does this law do to that? Nothing is!

We made two proposals. We have proposed a list, as in the Netherlands, and a supervisory committee. No majority party, nor the N-VA, has yet to engage in the discussion. In what way will you cope with this? I find it touching to hear all those mayors here say that they will do well in their municipality. Tof is! Do it !

It is now Thursday afternoon and you are all federal Chamber Member. Today it is our task to create a federal framework. It is within that federal framework that we must ensure that those other mayors can prevent outgoing affairs in their municipalities;

Mrs. Brems, I note that you apparently have no confidence in the local representatives of this country. There have just been municipal elections. These people must screen the regulations in a democratic way and within six months the law will come into force. CD&V calls on its mandators to screen the regulations and ensure that the absurdities are removed. It would be too far-reaching to act out of Brussels against the municipalities with municipal regulations approved by democratic municipal councils.

That is not the answer, Mrs.

Mrs. Brems asked a question that I would also like to get the answer. I will repeat the question. I hear you talk about law enforcement and rule enforcement. Who will act against these stupid laws? I will read a few or twenty of them later, so that you are informed. Who will act against the existing law? I think, for example, of knocking out mats on the footpath. I also know that the vacuum cleaner has existed since 1901, but still. Who will act against the foolish laws that are being issued? Who will do this?

These are not foolish laws, Mr. Dedecker, to which you refer, but foolish municipal regulations.

These regulations were approved by people who were democratically elected. Within six months, this law will come into force. It is the task of the municipal council to ensure that these regulations are screened and passed again by the municipal council in the next six months. Therefore, it is the municipal mandators who will approve those laws.

I would like to take the test on the sum. In Mortsel it is forbidden to knock or knock on the doors with the aim of obtaining an alms. Children are not allowed to sing Triekoningen or Sint-Maarten in Mortsel. Do you think that is a fantastic thing?

Mr. Speaker, the colleagues ask, so we turn. In Lokeren, a Vld municipality, it is forbidden to intimidate people. I think that when reading the GAS regulation, almost everyone is scared. In Lokeren is also prohibited, Mr. Mayor of Mechelen, the practice of assertion, the interpretation of dreams, fake assertion and related practices. I think that the folders for the municipal elections should be banned there. It’s really caricature, we can all laugh at it.

Tell me now, Mrs. Minister, Mr. Mayor of Mechelen, which authority will bring these caricatural laws in between? Who will check this? When a church commits such nonsense, is there then an authority that stands above it and will destroy it?

In Mechelen there is a mayor, indeed.

Mr. Dedecker, I will answer you and ask you to proceed afterwards. We have Saturday with CD&V a department day where all local mandators are invited. I invite you there; if you want, you can come. Then you will see that we explain the application of the GAS Act.

I am talking for CD&V. Are you inviting me out? Well, I am coming!

To listen, not to speak.

Colleagues, another often heard criticism is: “What use does it have to give young people a fine? The parents pay that fine anyway.”Well, we at CD&V want to get rid of that fine. We want to emphasize the cascade effect. Mediation is initially mandatory for minors, but the municipal regulations may stipulate that mediation is also mandatory for adults. We want to offer a community service in the second instance and only in the third instance a fine.

Over the past few days, we have been confronted with as many as 231 civil society organizations that have participated in the mobilization of the Flemish Youth Wire. Mrs. Brems, that is really a lot. We also do not escape them. They give a very important signal, for which we should not be deaf. We at CD&V reach out to these civil society organisations and to the youth lines in the various municipalities to conduct the debate in the municipal councils, because it is the municipal councils that will screen, modify and apply their GAS regulations in the coming months. Take this opportunity to debate and to refrain from the absurdities of the GAS regulations.

I think I have emphasized in this speech that this law also has a lot of advantages. Per ⁇ we cannot satisfy the Flemish Jeugdraad 100 percent, but we believe that this law still provides a response to criticism for 90 percent. The law provides benefits in terms of prevention, procedure, transparency, mediation and legal certainty for young people.

CD&V will approve this law, because it is a framework law in which our local mandators are given the responsibility to do disability management on the basis of their municipality or region. This is not a question of bullying from Brussels, but about the responsibility of the municipalities on the basis of four force lines.

With this I conclude my speech. Screen the municipal regulations and get rid of the absurdities. Discuss with the youth thread and the middle field in the municipality about what is trouble. Apply the cascade system: mediation, alternative sanction and, in a final phase, the fine. Last but not least, let common sense prevail. If there are no problems with fourteen-year-olds in your congregation, do not apply this.

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, 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. We wanted to make progress in this area. In addition, we contributed significantly to the debate by submitting in May 2012 a bill aiming at a number of improvements to a system that, as Ms. Slegers said, has already been in place for a long time and produces results.

In principle, it is obvious for us that the criminal system struggles to provide an effective response to crimes that undermine the security and daily well-being of citizens. From this finding, there are two possibilities: either one regrets the situation and satisfies itself with a general and structural irresponsibility, or one tries to find a pragmatic solution. And for us, the system of administrative sanctions is a pragmatic solution. This system may be improved, but it has the great merit of providing a quick response to the infringements that cause some annoyances that weigh on the daily life of our fellow citizens.

Previously, these same offences were often not even the subject of prosecution by the prosecutor. Administrative sanctions are a system that works quite well. It is not unnecessary to recall this and as a mayor, I could give many examples.

It is also important to recall that the conduct covered by administrative sanctions is a violation of the norms of social life, whether it is minor criminal offences or communal injustice. All those who commit these offences are targeted.

The message is therefore no more clear: any misconduct calls for a reaction from society, whether through fines, measures of benefits or simply a recall of the norm. This is an essential point for us, as we are convinced of the decisive role of the reminder of compliance with the norm and of the educational and civic role of this reminder for all, from minors to seniors.

Having participated in several debates devoted to administrative sanctions, I do not ignore the false controversy concerning the application of administrative sanctions to minors. Far from wanting to keep this debate silent, I would like to clarify this. The system of administrative penalties already applies to minors from the age of 16.

With this new text, we wanted to take into account a certain evolution of society. Young people are increasingly early offenders. You can regret it, but it is a fact. To deny it would be irresponsible. One of the goals is, therefore, to aim at an age when one can think that they are fully aware of their actions and the fact that the latter are in breach with the norm.

That being said, I will not have the pretension of entering into the debate on the philosophical-political approach to the repression of offenses committed by minors. I leave this to the specialists. Let them speculate on these abstract aspects as long as they want!

In my opinion, the first goal is the reminder of compliance with the norm and the refusal of impunity. However, I draw your attention to the fact that this aspect also constitutes in itself a beginning of educational response, especially since in the case of minors, educational-type measures are, in advance, mandatory: dialogue with parents, mediation with the victim, benefits of general interest, and I pass. Even when there is a fine, it is about imposing a reasonable fine of 175 euros on the worst. As you can see, this is not Guantanamo!

Furthermore, we should not focus the interest of this text and the entire system of administrative sanctions on young people. Incivilities are not the appendage of the latter. The text is addressed to all. To say that this is an anti-youth project is to bring a biased reading and a party footprint taken towards young people. This induces the idea that young people are all perpetrators of offenses and, in the end, it is showing itself much more stigmatizing towards young people than is the spirit of this bill.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, the MR welcomes the adoption of this text, which has been the subject of improvements throughout the parliamentary discussions, improvements to which we have largely participated, in particular by proposing the introduction of a flagrant delinquency procedure. This amendment received the support of all majority groups. In the end, it is a ⁇ strong and positive element of the project.

The political will carried out by the MR to see the reproachable acts sanctioned more quickly was already inscribed in the government agreement. This will has been reinforced and concretely implemented within the judicial districts with the establishment of flagrant crime chambers. It is now confirmed within the framework of municipal administrative sanctions, which we welcome.

We believe that the fact of bringing the moment of sanction as close as possible to the time of commission of the offence allows to fight against the feeling of impunity, a feeling with devastating consequences both for the victim who feels abandoned by society and for the perpetrator who feels comforted in his act left unanswered.

For us, the bill goes clearly in the right direction thanks to the improvements it brings. The system of administrative sanctions will be even more effective. Therefore, we will vote on this text with the greatest satisfaction.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will not overlook the various provisions of this amendment and limit myself to a number of points essential to me, my group and sp.a.

For us, this is about the question of what kind of society we want. The SPA wants a society that is livable, where people feel good. We do politics because we do well with our citizens, or should do well, whether we are members of Parliament or exercise a local mandate.

From Green’s response, I got the impression that here in Parliament serious matters are being dealt with and at the local level less serious matters are being dealt with.

If we treat people well, we must listen to them. What do people in all those cities and municipalities say? They say they are tired of all the problems they face, and they do not go to the member of Parliament in Brussels but to the mayor, the ships or the member of the municipality in their municipality with the request to solve that.

This may have been resolved twenty years ago. Maybe there were fewer trouble problems, maybe Justice had less work than today and the department did something about it. Only today I note that the Prosecutor’s Office and Justice are not dealing with disability problems.

The very simple question that arises here today is whether we want to provide a solution to those trouble problems, which are among the top five in every survey of the local population, if we find that the parquet does not do that today.

We say absolutely yes to that. We, as politicians, must find a solution not only in Brussels, but also in the village streets.

The solution is the municipal administrative sanction. It works . To the satisfaction of many, she works. This possibility was offered to the municipalities fourteen years ago and we see that it works to great satisfaction in many municipalities.

Just as we once encountered justice, we also encountered gas fines. After a sweat of justice and a sweat of judgment, I hear no one calling that we should abolish Justice as a system. We should only avoid the sweat judgments, just as we should avoid the sweat GAS.

I do not fully understand the reaction of the Green Fraction. At some of the presentations, I hold the feeling that it is against the GAS. The deputy party leader just said that Justice must resolve it, because that provides the best guarantee. If Green chooses that Justice must solve the problem, it means impunity today.

Should the judiciary solve it? This is what I want to discuss. Will we send minors wildplacers and lock torters to the youth court? No, I think GAS fines are a better solution for young people.

It is easy to call that Justice must resolve it. You do not have to do anything yourself and you can blame someone else. Meanwhile nothing happens. There are indeed a few minors in our society that ruin the stuff for the rest. Should we send them to the court for those small facts of inconvenience?

Our position is very clear: we do not say that GAS can not at any moment.

Slurry deposits and wild places are examples for which we also find GAS fines acceptable. In recent years, however, more and more things have been moved over. Theft and shop theft can be addressed. The big problem is that distress is very vaguely defined.

In an opinion of a former peace judge and a former police judge, it is stated that the trouble, before the change of the police courts in 1995, and even at the request of a police commissioner, came before the police court. As a result of the reform of the police courts, which then became traffic courts, that function has completely disappeared, those files have never been circulated again, a problem has arisen on the ground and local drivers have faced problems that are no longer solved. In 1999, the GAS was introduced, originally for such very obvious disruptive phenomena. That can be, for certain things that are very specifically determined, but the slinger is now passing all over to the other side. The system is extended with crimes such as shop theft or with very vague concepts such as harassment. That goes too far.

Your analysis that those cases were no longer punished or reviewed by the Justice at a certain point is correct. The question is, how do we solve it today? You say it’s a whole list. Then, of course, the question arises whether the local level is not the most appropriate place to determine and establish what is the real disability problem in the respective municipality.

I think these issues are considered better in the municipal council than here in Parliament. The municipal council is the place where the real discussion of local disability problems should be conducted. I do not want to be confronted in my city with the disability problem of Antwerp or Gent. I have nothing to do with that. On the contrary, in Antwerp, people are not interested in the trouble problems in my city. I think that the municipal council is the appropriate level to discuss these issues.

The Green Fraction is raising the idea of setting up another committee, i.e. a supervisory committee. Is this supervisory committee the city council? The municipal council determines what is a local disorder and whether it wants to punish that disorder. The municipal council decides whether it is a major or a minor. The municipal council decides whether a fine should be imposed and how high it should be, or whether a possibility of alternative punishment is necessary. The municipal council decides on all these matters.

The city council can also re-evaluate these matters every year and extract the sweets, which we occasionally talk about and which we occasionally read in the newspaper. Let this be done at the most democratic level that exists for these matters.

It was rightly referred to Mortsel. Green has had the years to say that. As a preparation, I went to look at the website of Mortsel, where Mrs. Pira – one of the two mayors of Groen – was mayor from 2001 to 2012. In 2008 and 2009 a whole gas regulation was approved in the municipal council. It consists of almost 250 articles. Undoubtedly, there are also issues that are questioned today whether they should be addressed through GAS fines. The website of the city of Mortsel states: “The city of Mortsel has 13 officials employed who are allowed to write down municipal administrative sanctions. We recognize that it is an effective means of acting against minor forms of harassment that previously remained unpunished.”

There may be a difference between the local Green representatives, who know what they’re talking about, and the federal representatives, who tell things that in practice, on the ground, are little true.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, I did not look at the website of Mortsel or other cities. You take it on and there will be certain and fixed things in the regulations that we all have problems with.

The question is – you may have found those figures – whether in 95% of the cases in which one has acted, it wasn’t about lock-outs and wildfields?

That is the essence. It really must be possible. It is too easy to refer to a municipality. Do you have any indication that there has ever been some kind of nonsense rule applied or that there has been some kind of nonsense state? You simply throw it in the public without being able to give an example.

This is the federal framework. I would like to conduct the debate here, because the framework we set here will be guiding what a municipality can do later.

My group wants to make that framework very clear and very strict for us, in order to avoid municipalities creating completely unacceptable situations in practice. The debate should actually be about how far we want to go and what framework we can offer to local governments here. Then they will also be obliged to remain within that framework. That is the essence of the debate.

If the framework is very tight, all municipalities will also have to adjust their regulations to stay within that framework.

That is the essence of the debate.

The essence of my reference to Mortsel is that, in half of the municipalities you had it to say, your mayor said it was good within the framework determined in Parliament. On the website you even write that it is an effective remedy. So don’t say today that it’s all foolish. It is also one of the Greens who has said that, who uses the framework that we have set in Parliament. If you’re talking about “sweets” today, it’s about sweets from the past, the old framework in which your mayor has entered. It is about that framework. Within that framework, there have indeed been sweatings. But leave that to the municipal council. What problem does Green now have with the fact that the municipal council decides what is own to the municipality and what is harmful to the municipality? If this is addressed, what do you have against it? We will set the framework here and that will be well delineated later.

The last thing I want to say about this — everyone has a point about it — is that we do not actually have global figures. I would like to discuss this with you. That is why we have submitted the amendment that requires the Minister to come to Parliament every two years with an evaluation and the figures. Is it a matter of adults or minors and what acts were punished? Then we can discuss this in globo. That was the reason for the amendment. I want to participate in that.

What we ask today is, in my view, a limited adjustment of the current framework, an adjustment about which there is much to be done. It is about lowering the age limit from 16 to 14 years. In Mortsel, by the way, it existed until sixteen years. In many municipalities, the age limit of 14 years will not be used. If, however, there are mayors of major cities where, unfortunately, it must be determined that a number of abuse crimes are committed by fifteen-year-olds, then we should give them the opportunity to address that, but not in a repressive way. This text is about guidance, mediation and the obligatory involvement of parents. I think this is the right way. In that regard, I even find that the text that is now forth is an improvement compared to the framework that we had.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, I don’t think I follow you well. I find it interesting to see that the colleagues of sp.a and CD&V here today suddenly stand with good intentions to address the dirty provisions and the deforestations of the GAS. At CD&V it is clear. Ms. Slegers has said how they see it in their own empire. Where they are local leaders, they will manage it. Their own representatives will receive strict instructions. At the same time, CD&V forgets the rest of the country. Thus, they are less concerned with it.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, how you will do it, is not so clear. You are talking about the municipal council itself, so the municipal council controls the municipal council. Well, those "sweet" regulations, as you call them, or those departure, as I would call them, have been approved by municipal councils, but then not corrected. The correction of the municipal council by the municipal council only works when elections are held again, because then a next municipal council, which may have different views, can do something about it. I do not understand how this can happen in practice. We have been familiar with municipal administrative sanctions for some time and practice has shown that the control by the municipal council is not an effective remedy against arbitrary and unreasonable displacement of the GAS. These disorders do not constitute the majority of cases. You will not hear us claiming that all cases are disproportionate or unreasonable. However, there are many, too many. I really do not see what you will do about it.

That is what I meant later with the dedain of Parliament in relation to the local democratic level. We are here, at least according to the Greens, smarter than the elected in the municipal councils. We are now going to control them; we must oversee the municipal governments. That is what you say, Mrs. Brems.

This is not an evaluation of the municipal council by the municipal council. It is an evaluation of the work performed by the GAS officer. The GAS officer has an independent status within the municipality. It is not the mayor who decides on municipal administrative sanctions, but the independent GAS official. It is also logical that this official will be accountable in the democratically elected organ of the municipality. This is how the story comes together.

I would also like to make the following observation. An example that comes out regularly is that of eating sandwiches on the church stairs. I do not know that specific case, because it is a case from Mechelen. Which party was in Mechelen with the majority? and green! Again, I do not know that case. There may have been reasons for this sanction. I also do not know what happened to it. In Mechelen, Groen had in the municipal council and even in the ship college that could possibly deal with "sweetness". Instead of doing that here in the Room, you can better make sure it happens where it should happen.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask another question to Mr. Vanvelthoven.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, you just used the beautiful word "dedain". Even for a socialist there is the separation of powers. I can understand the question of Mrs. Brems very well, when she asks who now controls who.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, as far as I know you are part of the legislative power. You are dealing with the legislative power. Unless I am mistaken, you are also a mayor and therefore a member of the executive power. In the field of GAS fines, you now also become the judiciary.

However, there is a certain form of separation of powers.

What is happening? I will tell you the reality. There is a lot of talk about common sense. I have lived in a socialist city for years, so I know how it goes. Anyone who receives a gas penalty can actually appeal. With whom ? The person concerned may stand on the corridor to be received by the mayor of the municipality where he or she appeals. Mr Vanvelthoven, you are part of the legislative, executive and judicial power. Explain, as a socialist, how you can defend this!

Mr. Dedecker, it may be a dream of many mayors to be part of the three powers at the same time. In this case, this naturally affects neither side nor shore.

The GAS regulations are approved in the municipal council. The GAS fines are not imposed by the mayor or by the ship's college, but by a GAS officer specifically appointed for this purpose. The mayor has nothing to do with the sanctions. Once the sanction has been imposed, there is a possibility to go to the judiciary. You can go to the police court. To say that everything is in the hands of the mayor while he is almost not involved in the matter is heavily exaggerated and proves that you know nothing about the whole matter.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, there is wishful thinking here.

First, it’s about reality, not about making a comedy about democracy. Anyone who has been in the city council for a while knows how it goes in the city council. The majority has wisdom and the rest are fools. This is how it is and you know that very well.

The municipal council itself, with you at the head, approves the relevant laws. Then you appoint a gas officer. Someone is appealing against his gas fine. I will tell you how such an occupation proceeds in the socialist city of Oostende, where even a few ministers sit in the municipal council. In Oostende, a gas sanctioned person can indeed appeal. To whom should the person concerned appeal? He or she must appeal to the Mayor. The sanctioned person therefore should have a party card of the party of the mayor in his pocket, because otherwise he or she will not lose his or her fine. So I don’t give a chance. That is the reality, Mr. Vanvelthoven. Therefore, I am afraid that it is no longer about the separation of powers, but that all power lies with the mayor.

Mr. Dedecker, if you continue, I will count these interventions from your speech time.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, here in this hemisphere, but also in the last weeks and months, there has been a very lively social debate about the current bill. My group and myself find that a very good thing. We think it is right that this legislation is discussed very thoroughly and that this discussion does not only happen here but also in society.

Indeed, today we are faced with a debate about rights and freedoms, about fundamental principles, about how we want to organize our society, how we want to build our rule of law and how we deal with the rules of the game and the rules of society.

In this debate, a lot of meaningful things have been said in the last few weeks. Even those who criticized the system often sprinkled and formulated criticism that was meaningful. They have promoted legitimate concerns. But let’s be honest, from time to time there were cartoons, there was populism, and certain things were completely misrepresented.

Several colleagues have announced in the media today that they are against, but will vote for. I am for and will vote for. I am in favour because I can neither permit myself as a representative of the people nor as a mayor to leave from an ideal, dreamed reality. I have to leave the social reality. And that social reality is complex. In that reality, there are people who don’t always want to follow the rules and don’t always have good intentions.

I am in favour of this law because the enforcement of legal rules is the fundamental guarantee for the freedom and legal protection of people. The rule of law, which must exist not only on paper but also in practice, on the ground, is the most fundamental response of the rule of law to a society where the law of the jungle reigns, where the law of the strongest, the most brutal, the most ordinary.

That is the issue here today. I would like to remind you how that gas legislation once came into being. It arose because many municipal regulations and laws on the ground were simply not applied, because the prosecutor’s office said it had too much work, because the prosecutor found it too banal, because one had too little time. For all these reasons, local governments, mayors and ship colleges, as well as police officers, people who stood in the prevention field, stood powerless in the face of phenomena such as vandalism, bicycle theft, graffiti splash, property damage, people harassment and the like. In fact, we were at the time facing a problem of a violation of the separation of powers. Then we stood before a violation of the separation of powers.

The work of the legislative power was no longer effective. The legislation was ignored. This has had dramatic consequences in certain neighborhoods and neighborhoods. The confidence in the rule of law has been undermined by many people, among the victims who live in those neighborhoods and who often lack dozens of committees to defend their interests. The acidification entered those neighborhoods and neighborhoods. They have lost confidence in democracy. The people who had to uphold the rules on the ground became dismotivated, both in the police and in the prevention work. That was the reality fifteen years ago in certain neighborhoods, in certain neighborhoods.

Speaking from a ten-year experience in a downtown city, I can tell you that the GAS Act has been a weapon against the causes of acidification. If today in several of our cities the dialogue in the neighborhoods can be restarted, there is a growing confidence in the government, a dialogue can be initiated and the coexistence is again more pleasant, then this is definitely not only, but also thanks to the fact that local governments were given tools through the GAS legislation to act against unacceptable forms of harassment.

Colleagues, in recent weeks, a number of criticisms have been formulated on the GAS legislation. My group and I want to listen to this very seriously. After all, some of those criticisms were correct.At the same time, some things were said wrong. I will overcome some of the main criticisms and I will put the points on the i.

First and foremost, the GAS legislation would eliminate the separation of powers. The idea that an official who depends on a ship college, a municipal council, a mayor, can judge and impose a sanction is unacceptable, according to the criticism of some. They call it a violation of the separation of powers.

I invite those people to take a look at the legal reality in the field. Is it so exceptional that an official imposes penalties, imposes fines, imposes sanctions? Can I refer to the football law? Can I refer to the legislation on false alarms for example? I can refer to the huge switch in environmental legislation – I am now talking about Flemish legislation, with an apology to the French-speaking colleagues – which was chosen in January 2009 to largely abandon the criminal arsenal, which de facto was not applied, and to move on to administrative enforcement. This has happened throughout Flanders’ environmental law, including spatial law.

As a result, officials today not only draw up the PV, but also pronounce the sanction. These penalties are sometimes ten to fifteen times higher than the highest GAS fine we can impose. I give a few examples. Noise exposure, or violation of the noise standards by companies of class 2: a fine up to 2 300 euros, imposed by an official. Damage to small landscape elements by pesticides: a fine of up to 2 300 euros, imposed by an official. There is no judge involved. The official makes the PV and imposes the sanction. Possession of a protected bird: a fine up to 4 763 euros. That is 14 times the maximum gas penalty!

In some cases, it goes even further. In some cases, the official not only imposes the PV, he not only imposes a fine, but can also collect them immediately. If a truck is overloaded, it can be set aside, the official can make the determination and the official can proceed to an immediate collection of EUR 2 500.

What do I want to demonstrate with this? Those who say this is an exceptional system that is beyond our legal order are actually making a caricature of today’s legal reality. There are even those who, from a very classical, traditional trias-political approach, consider all administrative law as a violation of the separation of powers, because all our administrative law, which has emerged in the last seventy years, falls under the jurisdiction and authority of the executive power.

Allow me to go one step further. We must also not be hypocritical. A local government has a lot of tools to sanction and impose fines. We do not call this fines or sanctions. Allow me to give a few examples. Closing a cafe on the basis of the Drug Act, or for the sake of public order, has a financial impact that is a multiplier of a GAS fine. The mayor can do this without requiring a judge to do so. withdrawal of a license. Declaration of uninhabitability of a home. A civil servant receives a list and decides himself, based on his findings, whether a certain number of points has been achieved and then the mayor can declare that property uninhabitable. The result is a loss of income because the home can no longer be rented. Moreover, this can be the basis for raising a tax that doubles every year. We call it a tax, but is it still a tax? Is this not a penalty or a fine imposed?

Let me give another example, more trivial. The tariff 2 for parking is available everywhere. For example, tariff 1 is 1 euro per hour, but for those who do not pay on time, tariff 2 applies in both Gent and Antwerp, in Mechelen or in Leuven. The price is 20, 25 or 30 euros. That is not a penalty, that is not a penalty, that is rate 2.

Those who say that in a democratic rule of law only sanctions can be imposed and that enforcement is only possible through the court, make themselves a bit wise. Then they must be consistent. Then they must challenge not only this law, but also the social law, which has recently been decentralized for half. Administrative enforcement was carried out. Also in spatial planning and environmental legislation, and in many other areas, local governors and officials have the ability to enforce.

I do not believe in that vision. I think it is a perception of the trias politica that is completely outdated in our modern rule of law. Our courts would explode!

Collega Vanvelthoven has rightly said: would it be appropriate to do everything through the court? To fight dog poop, should we go to the police court for that? The same applies to sluggish grooves, graffiti, wild squares. Is that an adequate answer to this, from the social reality?

I think the credibility of the rule of law depends on other things. This depends on what legal guarantees citizens have in the proceedings. These guarantees are here. The general police regulations defining the GAS fall under the special guardianship of the Governor, who examines both the legality and the public interest. All administrative acts are clearly covered by the legislation on the formal justification of administrative acts. All the general principles of good administration apply to this: the principle of equality, the obligation of hearing, the right to assist a lawyer, the principle of proportionality, the principle of proportionality. In the GAS procedure itself, the conditions are formulated. To give only one thing: the official who makes the determination must not be the sanctioning official. In addition, an appeal to the police court is always possible.

Colleagues, this legislation contains much more guarantees for legal certainty, much more legal guarantees, than in many other policy areas and many other legal systems.

I think with all honesty and with all respect that the criticism on this is totally opposite.

The second serious criticism is to be arbitrary. I can only comment on Mr. Vanvelthoven. This is indeed a moment of great unanimity. Willfulness has a different name here. This is called local democracy, local autonomy. Anyone who is opposed to the existence of different regulations in different municipalities can only do one thing and demand that the municipal governments be abolished and that local democracy be dissolved.

Can I give you some examples that play in other domains today? When I build in Mechelen or Zemst, there are different rules.

Let me give an example from the world of young people. If I want to organize a fuif, each municipality individually determines how long that fuif may last, how high the decibel level may be, whether the decibel level determined by the Flemish government may be exceeded, whether there should be security, or if there can be given strong drinks. We all decide this locally and in each municipality differently. That is the essence of local democracy.

By the way, the so-called arbitrariness did not arise with the GAS legislation. All those things that we are talking about now, and which are sometimes rightly disputed, existed also before.

There were previously municipal regulations that stipulated that one could not throw snowballs, and there was a police penalty. There were municipal regulations that stipulated that one was not allowed to spray graffiti and there was a police penalty.

That all existed before, but earlier that municipal regulation was harmed by a police penalty, which, though, was never applied. Some find it apparently an improved form of democracy when people locally at a given time make a choice, fully in accordance with the law, to address a particular matter, after which the King’s Prosecutor or the Prosecutor’s Office does not apply the law. Well, then, in my opinion, we are really talking about a violation of the separation of powers.

The essential question is indeed: do we trust our local democracy or do we feel superior to the mandators elected in their city or municipality by the citizens and make rules there, adapted to the local situation?

The third fundamental criticism concerns the zotternians. In some gas regulations there are indeed zotternias.

In some gas regulations, too many issues are addressed. As a mayor, I would like to say mea culpa. Following the social debate, which has been going on for several months, we have reviewed our regulations. In the meantime, almost all the parties that are part of the Parliament on the Flemish side have cooperated with that regulation. One party has never been there, but it always felt that we were not going far enough. That party has no right to speak.

All parties were present, but if you look at the regulations now, following the social debate, then indeed we have used the GAS fines too much as a stop-lap, as a means that we could easily grasp. If there was a social problem, we would resolve it with a GAS fine. That is right, and that is the value of the debate and of the social debate. In all municipal governments, one is seriously looking at whether one has not gone too far, whether one has not exaggerated and whether one has thought enough about it.

The fact that the youth thread should also give its advice is the value of the amendment. Some laugh at that. Do they have a lot of confidence in our democracy? This possibility should not be laughed at. If a local government simply dismisses the advice of its youth thread, it will pay a price for it. We must therefore think very well and be economical with the materials on which we impose GAS fines. It should not be caricaturized either.

I give the example of the fifty garbage bags of Antwerp. We heard what a shame it was that fifty residents were fined with GAS for putting their garbage bags out on the wrong day. But that rule existed before. This is stated in every police regulation. This is not only stated in a police regulation, we did more. We raised a tax when a garbage bag was out at the wrong time. It was also caught. Even more punitive, the rule is in the environmental legislation. Flemish environmental legislation stipulates that one cannot do so and imposes penalties and sanctions.

When we make certain things a caricature, we must be careful. I am willing to abolish that system, but I invite you to come visit my city fourteen days later. Put on your shoes, to touch through the dirt that lies on the street.

Let me give a second example: discowages. In my city, drivers who make too much noise in their car are verbalized with a GAS. One might ask whether we should continue to do so, and whether that is wise, since it is quite arbitrary. After all, an agent sees that, writes a PV and then one gets difficult situations.

The good thing about the social debate is that there is a consequence associated with the abolition of such a rule. We can no longer verbalize it. No one in my municipality can ever advertise that there are drivers driving around this way. If there is ever a collision by a car driver listening to such loud music that he hears nothing outside the car, then the whole municipal council knows that this is the result of a social choice. The local debate is responsible and that is essentially democracy.

The image that the law is directed against young people, I find the most problematic. I have said that the GAS contribute to the fight against acidification, but it threatens to be seen by young people as a legislation directed against them. Collega Vanvelthoven said in the committee that 95% of the GAS fines are aimed at the majority. In any case, we must be careful.

In Mechelen we have never given GAS fines to minors. We have a pedagogical project, the NERO system, which has given us a prevention prize. Young people are accompanied. Parental responsibility is reflected. Alternative sanctions are imposed. Mediation is created. We found that the old GAS legislation only led to fines. We don’t help young people, so we don’t. We also found that a lot of min-six-year-olds needed guidance. This is not possible with the gas legislation. We have created our own system. We have never issued gas fines for minors under eighteen.

Mediation is mandatory by definition. Parents are immediately involved and are given the opportunity to propose pedagogical measures. In this way we ⁇ the desired goal. If a young man makes a mistake, we will not let him go. We take responsibility for parents and go together to find a path to get those young people back on the right path. In Mechelen we have developed wonderful tracks. I will not switch to the new law, even if it is very close to what we are already doing in Mechelen, because I am in love with the NERO project.

I do not know if we will apply the law. Alleszins have strengthened the guarantees for young people rather than weakened, they have become better.

After all, the worst thing we can do to young people is to be indifferent, to say that it doesn’t interest us.

In a society of indifference, we support young people who make mistakes, who damage cars, who spray graffiti, who do things they cannot, no more; we leave them behind. I do not believe in that. I am convinced that our society should not abandon these young people.

Which young people should not be left behind? They are the weakest young people. We often talk about this here. So we need to have tools and leverages to reach those young people and their parents and the GAS is one of them.

Finally, this is a framework law. The responsibility lies with the local authorities and that is a good thing. Several youth organizations have formulated a number of critical comments and proposals. I would like to embrace two proposals, because I think they make sense.

The first proposal is the proposal for a register. Why do we not create a register, a benchmark, so that we can see what actions have been taken? That is a source of inspiration for municipal councils, which is the feed for the opposition in a municipal council, which are its elements to get to a good decision-making.

I urge the Minister to create a register for its two-year evaluation, which we make available to every municipal council, to every governor. In this way, one can see in the congregation whether appropriate measures have been taken and how one relates to other congregations.

Second, in all honesty, I fully agree with Green’s criticism that a GAS fine should be embedded in a broader integrated approach, because otherwise it is meaningless. I think that integrated approach should always be the starting point for societal problems. An integrated approach means that one begins with prevention, that one speaks first, that one seeks other solutions first, and that sanction comes only further into the chain.

There is a simple way for the Minister to resolve this. The Minister is expected to conclude security and social contracts soon. These are contracts between the federal government and a local government. She can perfectly enroll a chapter in which she asks local authorities to explain how GAS legislation is integrated into an integrated approach in the specific municipality.

I would like to ask the Minister to do so because I believe that this can be an important lever to incorporate the GAS fines into an integrated social and security policy.

I have a short comment. You will be satisfied, because it was already provided. This was a proposal in the working groups this week. This is already planned as part of a broader approach to prevention.

I thank you kindly.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I will decide. I think this legislation makes a lot of sense. It provides local governments with tools to improve coexistence and stand on the side of the weakest. There are new pedagogical measures that can enable a pedagogical approach of young people, which previously could not. This legislation also assumes a strong confidence in local governments. It also sounds like that.

Colleagues, you have undoubtedly received this week the letter on this bill from the 213 civil society organisations. There were a large number of organizations working with children and young people, from the scouts and the Chiro over the Flemish Jeugdraad to the youth of Animo and Jong CD&V. There were also organisations advocating for fundamental rights for holebies and minorities, ACW, ABVV and CAW.

That is not all. In recent months, dozens of well-founded opinions and opinion files have appeared criticizing the current application of municipal administrative sanctions and even more criticizing the current bill. This is because of people who from practice know very well what they are talking about, such as the youth magistrates, the Order of Flemish Balies and the criminologists. Today it turned out that the political youth departments, including those of the PS and of Open Vld, oppose the municipal administrative sanctions.

The mayors of the majority parties call for the hardest that they do not sit and wait for this law. The candidate is the N-VA mayor. Nevertheless, Chamber Members of CD&V, sp.a and Open Vld gather in this house as a block behind this law.

You should be aware of all this, colleagues, and also you, Mrs. Minister. Your law will help Bart De Wever in Antwerp to realize his conservative vision of society.

Mr. Speaker, a year ago we spoke with the Prime Minister and, among others, the Minister of Justice, a large delegation of representatives of mayors of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, from both major cities and smaller municipalities. The first requirement of each party in the various territories of our country was that there should be a rapid improvement of the existing legislation on GAS fines.

This is ⁇ interesting information. Thank you for that! I wonder what has happened in a year, which has caused the municipalities to take such a turn. Good done by the midfield, well done by those 213 organizations and well done by Ecolo and Green to make clear what risks are tied to it! Today, it is clear that we no longer hear those voices.

Mr. Dewael, I would also like to address you. Sometimes I like to read the views of the liberals. For example, I like to read Mr. De Gucht’s criticism of the narrow vision of the N-VA. I would also like to read Mr. Verhofstadt’s plea for an open society. But those are his words! In practice, in the present file, your party pulls the hardest to help the N-VA break down the open society at the local level. I do not understand that well.

Colleagues, despite the rarely seen civil mobilization, you refused to organize hearings with representatives of civil society. The meetings of the committee for domestic affairs have, however, been delayed several times, but to listen one afternoon to the experiences and grievances that live there, however, there was so-called no time.

Well, Green and Ecolo have organized hearings. We listened and read the arguments well. We thought and discussed. Many of the widely shared criticisms have been translated into amendments. Then we saw in the committee that there was no openness before that in the majority. The message to civil society is clear and sad. Therefore, we re-introduce some crucial amendments during this plenary session.

We have not submitted an amendment to abolish the municipal administrative sanctions. We see a place for GAS, as part of an integral security policy, where a repressive approach — for that is it — is not the automatic first choice, but comes only when other means have failed. For us, a livable environment also means an environment in which people talk to each other and where the government first talks to the people before imposing sanctions. We want to do more than symptom control, we want to emphasize prevention and structural solutions.

If we do not want to abolish the municipal administrative sanctions, what have we tried to do? Our group has two types of objections. We are first and foremost concerned with what this bill does not do, although it is very necessary in our opinion and a large part of society. Then we insult a number of things that this bill does and that we, together with a large part of society, find negative developments.

Let me start with the first. In fact, it is unthinkable that the government, when preparing such legislation, which will directly affect many citizens, fails to first carry out an assessment of the current application of the GAS. The bill specifically wants more GAS for more facts, more types of sanctions, higher fines. Implicitly, without investigation, the government seems to have given the existing GAS a good report.

It’s not because the government doesn’t evaluate that people don’t evaluate. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen happening in the last few months, in a democratic way, from below. A constant in that flow of testimonies, files and pleasures is that the GAS sometimes goes out of hand. Regularly they are applied to trivial facts in a random way. No one says that this is by definition the case or that it is the majority of applications, but that it happens, and too often, cannot be denied. Sometimes it is about describing prohibited behavior. Some municipalities prohibit on penalty of penalty behaviors such as hanging around, dragging boxes, sitting on the lounge of a couch or shaking a dust pipe out of a window. More often—and ultimately we must look at it—there are unreasonable applications of prohibitions that are not necessarily unreasonable in themselves.

I think of that seventeen-year-old who in Leuven with a water pistol accidentally struck an officer in civilian. That agent spoke to him angrily — that I think is a normal reaction — and promptly gave him a GAS fine. Was it necessary? Or that 16-year-old girl who in Antwerp threw an empty colablet on the ground. The police saw this and asked her angry to pick it up. A good intervention, I would say. But then there is another gas in addition to four hours of community service. A minor who sputters on the public road must in Leuven a day with the garbage barrel. A pensioner who in Antwerp on a snowy day at 10 o'clock in the morning has not made the road snow-free, immediately gets a GAS fine in the bus. Gas for snowballs in Antwerp and Lokeren. GAS to get to your wife and swing in Antwerp. GAS in Leuven for students who drink a can of beer on a bench on the square, while a few meters further on a café terrace everyone can drink pinten.

Or what about GAS fines for Villanella, the Antwerp art house for children and youth that yesterday launched a ludic campaign because they themselves already collected five unreasonable fines? I quote them: “In October 2012, Villanella received the first proposal for a GAS fine. It involved hanging a paper flyer on bicycles to announce the opening of our studio. Then we received a second penalty for attaching road signs to a hard-to-find theatre performance on site. The penalty was issued during the series of performances that lasted three days and therefore not because we had hanged them afterwards. It is a cultural disaster.”

As far as we are concerned, all these applications are unreasonable. And there are dozens of other examples. Those who have not closed their eyes and ears in the last few months could not miss the testimonies. However, the present draft law does not do anything to prevent such unreasonable applications. More than a few expressions of goodwill from mayors to do well in their municipality, we have not heard.

We have submitted two proposals to implement these urgent corrections.

I just looked at the regulation of Mortsel, where a green mayor has approved this regulation in the municipal council. According to the law, it is forbidden to hide dogs. I also find this an absurdity. It is also forbidden to show exotic animals in the public domain. I also find that strange. How would you want to ⁇ that such matters in Mortsel no longer come into that regulation? Can you explain this to me?

Mrs. Slegers, you give me the opportunity to further my point. In fact, unlike all other speakers, we have an answer to this question, even a combined answer, although each of our solutions individually would have brought us a whole end further. Our first proposal in the committee was to draw up a restrictive list of behaviors that can be addressed with the GAS. This works very well in the Netherlands.

and a detail. It’s about Mortsel, but I don’t know the situation well. If my memory does not let me go, that law is not approved by Green alone. I think the SP and the cartel were also in the majority. It’s just a detail, but I wanted to say it.

You list some examples that we describe as caricatures. There are others, you said. I don’t know if you know the total number of such cartoons or what in your eyes are irregularities or nonsense. Have you ever looked at how many of those cases eventually went to the police court and what the results were?

Mrs Brems, I would like to join the mind track of the limitative list, but how will you make sure that that limitative list is also limitative and therefore includes everything that those 308 Flemish municipalities consider important as for them to fight disadvantage? How do you make that list? Don’t you fear that if something is missing on that list, people will stay hungry? How will you solve the problem if what they perceive as a discomfort is not addressed because it was not included in the list?

Mrs Slegers, I can see that your group, unlike ours, has not yet thought about this.

Yes, sorry, but it’s in the pipeline and Mr. Dedecker will help you think about it, Saturday.

We have many years of experience with administrative sanctions. If we had an assessment ... (Rumoer)

There is a lot of material on the basis of which a thorough evaluation can be made. This evaluation can also result in a screening.

One can see what behaviors and applications there are and based on what descriptions they happen. I do not have to explain the basic principles of the legal system. Based on the evaluation, it is quite possible to list the scenarios and cases and make a selection and make descriptions based on them.

It is a perfectly feasible proposal. It also exists in the Netherlands. Therefore, there is no need to pretend that the proposal is unachievable.

Mr. DeGroote, I have forgotten your question.

How many special cases have come to the police court?

In the absence of evaluation, which is a big hole – you must agree with it – we do not have exact figures. However, I would like to point out that the disproportionate, unreasonable cases ⁇ do not constitute the majority of cases. However, there are many cases over the years. They are also perceived by the citizen as immensely unreasonable and burdensome.

You may have a different opinion on the matter, but we do not consider it acceptable to adopt a law that can provide a reasonable solution in three-quarters of cases. Who is responsible for that other quarter of unreason?

We do not reason in this way. We are working on creating a federal framework. We want to ensure that the remaining quarter is not left with empty hands. We do not know how many cases it is; it may also be 30 % or, for my part, 20 %. We do not know, because the problem has not been thoroughly evaluated. We want to ensure that the above does not happen.

You have a question about the police court. The Minister and, of course, we will also be responsible for the answer. The figures in question are not there.

However, all this cannot be presented as an indication that people would not have problems with the matter. The fact that someone does not go to the police court does not mean that he or she accepts the sanction as reasonable.

You know as well as I know that a procedure involves a lot of costs. The person concerned must, for example, take a lawyer under the arm. Costs are a very large threshold in our right. In the limited criminology studies published on the GAS, this is also demonstrated and argued.

Mrs. Brems, do you think that in the twenty-seven member states of Europe there are very adequate legislation everywhere? Do you think that the legislators in the twenty-seven countries of Europe really limit themselves to the essence of things and that none of the absurd laws are made anywhere? Is that your opinion?

Indeed, if you have not taken that opinion and if you believe that absurd laws are adopted here and there in the Member States – I also look at our own Member State – then, in the same logic that you now apply, Europe would be better to draw up a restrictive list of legislative initiatives that the Member States can still take. It is identically the same logic as the lack of confidence in local democracy, which you out here.

Everywhere, in every municipality, local democracies are installed and the citizen has represented decision makers. I had expected, ⁇ from the Greens, that they would have some confidence in local democracy.

Mr Jambon, colleagues, we are here working on a law that, anyway, creates a restrictive framework for local autonomy. You’re showing yourself as strong opponents of any restriction, but that’s by definition what this project does. We are here a framework for creating what communities can, what they cannot and what they should. There is a lot in this law that restricts autonomy.

Unfortunately, we do this not on the basis of a thorough assessment, and fortunately not only on the basis of theory, but on the basis of dozens of well-founded testimonies from people on the ground. Youth organisations, judges, lawyers, and all possible civil society organisations have demonstrated that things have happened that I have heard today four or maybe even five groups say that they can’t get through the fence and that something must be done against it.

I ask myself: what are we doing, if we sketch a framework that draws the limits for municipal autonomy without attracting us anything from all those testimonies and all those evidence on the ground?

For those who consider the limiting list to go too far, we have proposed a lighter solution in the committee, in particular the creation of a follow-up and monitoring committee, which has a advisory and supporting function with respect to local governments, and which can also swim with the red flag when it comes to the writing. However, we did not want to discuss our proposal in the committee.

Why do we make these proposals? To avoid municipal administrative sanctions being applied for trivial facts, which may fall under the letter of a municipal provision but which in practice cause no or minimal inconvenience. We also do so to ensure that municipal administrative sanctions are applied only in obvious cases, where it is responsible to impose sanctions without the guarantees of a court.

Mr. Somers, without having to be an absolutist of the separation of powers, there are good reasons to limit the number of situations in which sanctioning can be acted without the guarantee of a court. The separation of powers should not be minimized. He is not there for nothing.

I quote Jan Blommaert: “Professional magistrates have traditionally the task of monitoring the clarity of prohibited behaviors: they must check for each individual case whether the facts correspond to a criminal act determined by law. In his office, evidence and testimony are collected and assessed, and all this is always carried out in a pattern of word and response in which the prosecutor and the defence are both entitled to the same rights.

That is a good principle. For example, it prevents stand-alone convictions and lynch parties: you look guilty and we think you are guilty, so you are guilty and we punish you immediately.

The careful weighing of all evidence and statements also prevents a large number of errors and is thus a kind of quality guarantee.”

This quality standard is not met by the GAS procedure. The determination is made by officials who do not have to comply with the strict procedures of the police. For example, instead of having to legitimize themselves, it happens that they are deliberately operated anonymously.

The sanction is imposed by an official and in a procedure that does not provide the guarantees of the court. Therefore, we must use them economically and use them only in clearly defined and clearly established cases.

Therefore, controls are needed to avoid the imposition of a fine for lock-outs on someone who accidentally and in good faith puts out his garbage bag on a holiday day, as more than three hundred Antwerpers may have experienced on 1 May 2013. The city’s cleaning service did not work, the GAS officials did.

Surveillance is also necessary in order to avoid that findings happen in a misguided manner. So it happens that a group of young men, some of whom cause trouble, are all punished, although there is one who has nothing to do with it and who happens to be standing on the same square waiting for his friend. Without investigation, without court, one is at risk.

A second correction, which we consider extremely important, concerns safeguarding the fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly by avoiding the imposition of municipal administrative sanctions on actions and manifestations.

Last weekend, eighty peaceful protesters in Antwerp were told that they could expect a GAS fine for participating in a demonstration against Monsanto. Previously, municipal administrative sanctions were used in Antwerp against, among other things, a demonstration of Occupy Antwerp, a bicycle tour of Critical Mass Bike, pamphlets of Breathless and an attached manifesto of the Homeless Action Committee.

Another example is the GAS fines for PvdA militants who distributed pamphlets without permission for solidarity with Ford Genk employees at the end of October before the start of the Genk-Standard competition.

For us, municipal administrative sanctions cannot be imposed in such situations, not because we believe that one may manifest or accuse everywhere without permission, but because we believe that it is up to a judge to judge whether sanctions are justified when the facts constitute the exercise of a fundamental freedom.

A judge could, for example, take into account the fact that many participants in the Monsanto campaign thought the action was approved by the city administration, because it was stated on the website of the global organization within which they operated. For the situation in Genk, the court could take into account the fact that the entire football match was within the framework of solidarity with Ford Genk.

Per ⁇ the judge would impose a sanction. However, sanctioning is not an automation for judges, but the result of a careful process of consideration taking into account the defence of the person concerned. This is a fundamental choice we make in a rule of law and we should ⁇ not deviate from it in areas such as civil activism, which belongs to the heart of the rule of law.

Colleagues, what does the draft law do and what are in our eyes, and in those of a large part of society, nefaste developments? I would like to emphasize four points in this regard.

First, the draft law includes a significant expansion of the list of mixed infringements, including voluntary beats and injuries, vehicle destruction and theft. These are criminal offences, which are not taken out of the Criminal Code, which means that our society is of the opinion that in principle the prosecutor’s office must prosecute those facts and that a criminal judge should judge about them.

The prosecution of crimes covered by the Criminal Code is the central task of the Prosecutor’s Office. That this is now entrusted to GAS officials is not because there has been a change of opinion about the qualification of those facts as a crime, but because our judicial apparatus has too little capacity and does not apply to it. It is a lap agent. Instead of doing what must be done, in particular strengthening the capacity of the parquet, one chooses a parallel administrative circuit where the same safeguards do not apply to perpetrators and victims as in the court. We cannot agree with this.

Can I ask you a question? Can you explain exactly why you object to the very small extension of the mixed infringements? What are your objections to the very small extension of the list of mixed infringements? That list has almost not changed.

Clashes and injuries and theft are classical crimes. The criminal law is now being bypassed.

The list of mixed infringements is almost the same. We have expanded this with poorly parked cars. These are local problems. You think we need to go to court for that. I do not understand you.

We must choose. Are certain facts crimes that need to be prosecuted? They are not taken out of the Criminal Code.

We’re talking about things like theft and deliberate beats and injuries. This is the first thing the citizen thinks about when committing a crime from the Criminal Code. Criminal law was invented with all of its guarantees: a judicial procedure, an independent judge, an investigation. This is now being bypassed. This is a weak offer. We do not want to leave it unpunished, we want to take it seriously. Invest in the court.

So why did you approve the bill in 1999? That was heavier then. We talked about theft and so on.

But finally! You make me laugh. Just be a little coherent. I love consistency from time to time. In 1999, we without problems, without mentioning the judiciary, transferred theft, violence, etc. And here, when we talk about parking, that’s the drama!

You’re going to explain to me your mental evolution because I don’t understand it well. Look a little at the increase in the list of sanctions for mixed infringements and tell me what annoys you in this increase that is ten times more moderate than what we decided in 1999.

The mixed infringements are indeed still in the Criminal Code and theft is indeed a serious infringement, but do you know the service note of the parks? and no. Then you need to inform them. After all, what happens? The findings of the mixed infringements go first to the prosecutor’s office. The parket must then be filtered. The parquet then looks at what matters are heavy enough to prosecute. On the files that they do not consider sufficiently heavy, such as small shop theft, the GAS regulation applies. You need to make sure that nuance.

Mrs. Brems, when your fundamental criticism is that the new text is a weakness offer, can I assume that you are consistent with your party and that it is your claim that wherever officials impose sanctions or wherever local governors have the ability to impose sanctions, we must abolish it everywhere, given the separation of powers?

So, in other words, should we overlook the whole administrative law and, in environmental law, where officials not only make the minutes of the trial but also impose the penalty – which thus goes far beyond the proposed system – go back to the situation where only criminal prosecution is carried out? Are you in favor of this?

You went out when I talked about the separation of powers. You’re back here now and you think it’s still the same thing, but I’m actually making a very different point.

What is the point I have made about the separation of powers? If one wishes to make it without the guarantee of a court and a judicial procedure, it must be clearly defined facts and clearly identifiable facts. I have not made any absolute prohibition in this regard.

Now I have made the point that one must be consistent if one deliberately leaves things in the Criminal Code, for good reasons, because we still believe that it is the task of the criminal judge and that it is indeed a serious crime that belongs to the category of criminal law. We are not inconsistent here. The inconsistent are those who leave matters in the Criminal Code and then in fact do not invest enough in the judicial apparatus to effectively prosecute those matters.

Mr. Degroote, I see that you are making the same movement as many colleagues with regard to your own mayor. You will solve this later. You will make arrangements with the parquets so that they still take enough for their account, you say.

That is to wait. Fortunately, after a few years there will be an evaluation regarding the functioning of this law. I hope together with you the best.

We still have a few objections.

For example, we have, secondly, an objection to the increase of the maximum amount of the fines that can be imposed as municipal administrative sanction. This is a significant increase. That amount was EUR 125 for minors and EUR 250 for adults. You have been here for several years and you have a good salary. You probably don’t realize that for most citizens it’s huge amounts. The bill raises that up to 175 euros for minors and 350 euros for adults. I would like to remind the colleagues that the living wage for a single person is not yet 800 euros. This is every month, my colleagues. We cannot agree with this increase.

Third, the bill reduces the minimum age for imposing municipal administrative sanctions from sixteen to fourteen years. Yes, community service, mediation and a parental involvement procedure are provided. You can all continue to claim that it is pedagogical, that it is in the interest of the younger self, and that it ⁇ is not repressive. This does not involve young people, as has been clearly shown in recent weeks. The youth sector was not involved. These are, in all cases, measures that are very serious for a younger and for the younger’s family. They fit into a repressive approach. The resistance of the youth themselves and of the youth sector is so great because their experiences with the existing municipal administrative sanctions for minors from sixteen years old and for young adults are negative. They experience that the system works hand in hand intolerance towards young people. They experience that GAS is stigmatizing, that problem youths are depicted as the main security problem in cities and that it often consists in criminalizing ordinary youth behavior. In the words of the youth chairs of the Flemish and French-speaking socialists, the Flemish Christian Democrats and the Flemish Liberals: “GAS has become a symptom of an acidified society in which tolerance towards each other and towards young people, in particular, appears to be further than ever.”

Mr. Speaker, I would like to confront Mr. Brems for a moment with another caseist. An inhabitant of the city center is suffering from the fact that every weekend it is again stabbed at its front door.

Once you accept that, a second time you find it annoying, and a third time you ask for an action from the government. If the wildplasser is a major, then you will find it good that a GAS fine is imposed, because he will not do it again the next time. If it is a fifteen or sixteen-year-old, then that is apparently a problem, because then we should not impose a GAS fine. Green’s message to the citizen who asks to stop the wild places is actually that it is a young man, who is allowed to do so. Our message to that citizen is that we also want to correct that behavior, not in the same way as with an adult, but in a different way, through mediation. We invite the parents. If that boy has to apologize to that resident, that will often be enough to avoid a fine. However, if the boy refuses to apologize, then I think we should be able to impose a GAS fine in our society. This is about the acidification of our society. This is really about it.

Mr. Vanvelthoven, I just quoted your own youth chairman in connection with acidification, so I transmitted the message of the young people themselves.

I thank you for making that point, because it is a good transition to my next argument. Your example shows very clearly what is going on with the majority parties and with everyone who supports the bill. It is a vision in which the only form of action against a problem that occurs in a society is a repressive action. This is a narrowing of the look to the repressive approach.

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Mr Jambon, he said that. What Mr Vanvelthoven calls pedagogical is part of the GAS system.

Mr. Vanvelthoven has said that a fine comes at the end of the procedure, after several mediation attempts, after the parents were brought. Mrs. Brems, your own eyes are narrowed. You don’t even listen to what your colleagues say.

Mrs. Brems, I actually agree with you. More than 95 percent and ⁇ even 99 percent of young people can be reached in other ways, namely by a good conversation in which they are reminded that their behavior cannot, or even by talking with their parents. I am convinced of this. But I am equally convinced – this is the reality I am in as a mayor – that in every city, in every municipality, a limited number of young people do not listen. These young people are not susceptible to this method.

What message do we give to that younger, about which colleague Vanvelthoven has just spoken, if it is a hard-learned person? You advocate continuing to try prevention. Well, there comes a final point. At some point, we as a society must switch to something else. This must be done pedagogically and well-framed. Fines are not the best way to do so, but they are made possible by the GAS legislation. You simply deny it. You close your eyes to the social reality of a limited number of young people. These young people need guidance, more than a good conversation.

Mr. Somers, you are making a caricature of it, but let me finish my previous point first. What is it about when I speak of a narrowing of vision? Prevention is considered to be an intervention measure in which a young person must come to the mediator with his parents, and may bring a lawyer with him. This is proposed here by some colleagues as prevention and as a pedagogical approach. Then I think, colleagues, that you are blind to the reality on the ground in our country and to what really is a preventive approach.

A lot of municipalities in our country are swinging too well and too inappropriately with GAS fines, but have not even employed a street corner worker. This is the case, colleagues. However, these things can really help.

Mr. Somers, I am pleased to hear you confirm: other measures help most young people. The signal we send to the municipalities with this legislation is that those other measures do not necessarily have to be tried first. We can hope that all those mayors and municipal councils will pursue a different policy, but we make it possible for one to take a sanctioning approach before one has attempted effective prevention.

Mr. Somers, for that small percentage of untreatable young people there is youth law, youth protection law, youth sanction law, in which, by the way, there is already a lot of experience with mediation.

We talk about prevention, the involvement of parents and conversations. This is very important to me. Therefore, we have provided for a specific provision, namely the involvement of the parents in the procedure. Do you think that is not a good idea? Do you have an objection to that new provision, since apparently everything is bad in the design?

That involvement is new and is very interesting. The decision came after a conversation with some youth judges, who know the area. We now have a new provision on the involvement of parents. Through a conversation with the sanctioning official and the parents, we can complete the procedure. Is it just something?

Mrs. Milquet, the procedure that the law now creates is a better procedure than if mediation did not exist. However, we are here opposed to the vision as if that was prevention, as if that was the pedagogical approach of young people. All this still fits in a repressive approach. You should listen to the testimonies of young people of how profound such a thing is in their lives.

Can I ask a question? You must also listen to the others! There is the involvement of the parents when a minor has committed an infringement. The sanctioning official asks for a conversation with the young and parents. Isn’t that interesting? Do you think this is a repressive approach?

Indeed, Mrs the Minister. That’s something that now fits into an approach that assumes that a rule has been broken and that begins a process that leads to a sanction. When we talk about prevention, it is a different approach, in which one talks with the people, develops projects and employs different personnel than those who detect violations or issue sanctions. It is about that. Fortunately, there are many successful projects of this type in our country. Fortunately, there are also many local majorities in all groups that know such approaches.

I am falling quickly from my chair. Parental involvement and mediation, which you will find not prevention, but repression. The conclusion is that a minor who uses wild plastic should not be addressed, as Mr Vanvelthoven said later. Therefore, you will not address this issue, as you consider initiating parental mediation or engaging in a conversation with the parents to be repressive and not preventive!

Your intervention actually illustrates the point I just made. One seems to forget that it is also possible to talk with people, with offenders and their parents, outside of a repressive framework. If the conversation does not have the desired outcome, it will have further consequences. That is what is going on here.

Why is there such a difference between minors and adults? Colleagues, that is something that exists throughout our legal system and for good reasons. We want to give young people more opportunities because we know that they, less than adults, are able to always make the right choices. I think that the criticism of the Flemish and French-speaking Commissioner for Children’s Rights has been treated unfairly by this Parliament; that criticism is right. The criticism of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child is also correct, to say that this goes against the logic of our legal system — which, in other words, treats young people very well — as well as against the logic of international children’s rights.

You will regret it, colleagues, but I am almost at the end of my intervention. If you hadn’t interrupted me so often, it would have gone faster.

I would like to tell you that we also oppose the introduction of the place ban as a competence of the mayor. Prohibiting people from going to certain places for a certain period of time is an enormous measure. That is a strong limitation of personal freedom, the freedom of movement, of walking and standing. Let this be imposed by the mayor for a very broadly described and largely locally filled range of behaviors, cannot be for us. Such a measure can only be imposed on us by a court. It must consider whether the restriction of the freedom of going and standing in that particular case is proportionate to the objective.

It should be clear that this is a bad bill for us. As far as we are concerned, the case has not been settled after today. As long as we still have the two-chamber system, there is a chance to correct the errors of the House in the Senate. It is our democratic duty to strive for an evocation of the draft by the Senate, and to organize hearings in the Senate, taking into account the well-founded views of the civil society.

For evocation, fifteen senators are needed. The Ecolo-Green Group can deliver approximately half. We can hardly believe that among the majority parties there are not a few senators who want to engage in dialogue with the middle class in this House.

But even if that were the sad reality, the battle has not yet been fought. The GAS Act creates a framework within which each municipality itself determines how much or how little it wants to make use of it, for what facts and sanctions, and whether or not for minors. If you pass this bad law today, we will insist in the municipal councils that it causes as little damage as possible, that the new possibilities are not applied and that the already existing GAS are thoroughly evaluated.

I would therefore like to address a warm call to the 213 organizations that campaign against this law and to the political youth organizations, in particular the friends of Animo, Jong CD&V and Jong Open Vld, to continue this campaign together with us at the municipal level.

However, the following must be clear to the citizens. If you are later dragged into an intrusive GAS intervention because your fourteen-year-old daughter threw snowballs, and touched, or if you have a fine on your pants because you in good faith took part in a ludic demonstration, then you know that your mayor is behind it, but also don’t forget who gave the municipalities that power. This dragon of a law has no less than six enthusiastic parents, namely the six majority parties, which are the Socialists, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats.

Mrs. Brems, since you ask a very concrete question, I will give you a very concrete answer. As far as I am concerned, I prefer that my 14-year-old teenager who does a little nonsense is not sent to the youth judge and that we do not judicialise at all goes, that is, the opposite of everything that has been advocated for years, including at the level of the ecological parties. Everything judiciary, including small teenage nonsense, and well, clearly, this is not my choice!

On your last sentence, I would like to make a small correction. Our group will also support the six majority parties, but we will not get two additional group employees for that support.

Mr. Speaker, Ms. Fonck knows very well that, within the scope of the various things to be implemented in the youth aid policy, there is not only judicialization or the youth judge. You know, Madame, since you have been Minister of Youth Aid for five years. It should be added to the field of youth support services: they are also there to work. You are right: a job has been done to dejudiciarize. I do not believe that the debate we held here was that of a greater judicialization of all youth aid.

The youth support services, which I know especially well, produce excellent work. But when your colleague in your group says it’s better to send a 14-year-old to a youth judge for a little nonsense – that’s what she said, you’ll read the report – I absolutely disagree with you.

Madame Fonck, I saw that, throughout Mrs. Brems’ speech, you were immersed in your signatories and your computer. You have absolutely not been attentive to what was said!

Dear colleagues, there is still Mr. Logge, Mrs. Schyns, Mr. by Jadot, Mr. Clerfayt, Mr. Dedecker Mr. and brace. I insist that, if possible, the times that have been announced to me are respected. I know that Mrs. Brems was often and long interrupted, but despite the interruptions, instead of the scheduled 15 minutes, she spoke 50 minutes.

I’m just trying to point out the thing. I do not have any problems and I remain attentive to everything that happens. I would like to keep up with what has been announced with respect for everyone.

Mr. Speaker, I have indeed announced that, but it can be verified from the recordings that Mrs. Brems was interrupted very often and had to answer a lot of questions. She is the only one who has been interrupted so often. That is why her speech lasted longer.

It was not interrupted for thirty-five minutes. Let us try to calibrate the debate!

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Some people work and others rest.

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. It is good that this finally gets attention.

Mrs. Minister, you will be surprised, but we will not reject everything in your bill. Not everything in your bill is bad. We will point out some good, positive points, but we will also formulate some critical comments.

I want to start with it. Colleagues, and among others colleague Somers, you say that we must be economical with these types of sanctions and not let them exaggerate. However, I note that the list of infringements covered by the GAS is getting longer and longer and I have a problem with this.

Colleagues, you note with me that the list of officials and other people who can write out these types of sanctions – including employees of surveillance firms, although very limited, but they are still there – is getting longer and longer.

Mrs. Minister, I come to the point on which you went with colleague Brems in clinch. We have a particular difficulty with the list of mixed infringements. You say that the list is almost not being extended. It is one or the other. It is extended, although it is limited. We believe that mixed infringements do not belong to the line of GAS sanctions.

From the beginning, the Vlaams Belang has behaved as a cool lover of the GAS. The reason is very clear. On the basis of the argument, we have never left any doubt. I quote from the text that we have published following the first applications of the GAS sanctions: “The municipal administrative sanction must be fully applied in the fight against the disorder and against crimes that are no longer prosecuted by the prosecutor’s office. Nevertheless, the parks should take full responsibility in this regard as soon as possible.”

Due to the heavy overload and underoccupation of the parks, the system of municipal administrative sanctions was introduced a few years ago. We can still follow this for minor police offenses such as wild places. Efficient instruments must be created in order to be able to make payments very quickly.

We are not in favour of the systematic and increasingly frequent replacement of correctional sanctions. This cannot be for us. Such arrangements are removed from the sight of the prosecutors, in particular because no more registration is made in the criminal register. For us, the parkettees must take their full responsibility again.

The strange thing is that the Flemish majority parties indeed all indicate that the cause of the extension of the GAS sanctions is the inadequate functioning of Justice.

What is said then? In anticipation of the efficient functioning of the Judiciary, we will expand the GAS. There will also be more officials and more infringements. At the same time, Mrs. Minister – it is regrettable that Mrs. Turtelboom is not present here – we note that there is very little movement in the field of Justice and we notice very little action of Justice in the field of mixed infringements.

On the contrary, a number of mixed infringements are simply withdrawn from the criminal court and finally placed with the officials. This cannot be for us. I am very clearly in that.

There are, of course, some positive aspects in your bill.

In a number of areas, your bill meets the aspirations and wishes of the Flemish Interest, to finally get rid of a number of cases of inconvenience and the sense of insecurity.

We fully support the introduction of the ban as a sanction. These are publicly accessible places, where the mayor can impose this sanction in case of disturbance of public order. It can be pronounced for a month and it is renewable twice. That is a good sanction.

We differ on that point of view from our green colleagues, who found this absolutely not a good sanction. I think this is a good sanction.

What we also find good is the increase in administrative fines. I will not repeat the amounts. They are known.

The new procedure for the immediate payment of administrative fines has been introduced with much applause. You have created the perception that it is a good and powerful measure. In principle, this is indeed a good measure. If we look at the conditions that must be fulfilled, we are already much less positive, but in principle we find that a good measure.

What we also find positive is the fact that the crime “threat of attacking persons or property, or providing false information about an attack”, which is the false bomb notification, is removed from the GAS and, due to the gravity of the facts, is again and only criminally sanctionable. That is good, but of course it does not sufficiently compensate for the less good points.

As regards the breach of the burka ban, in case of recidive, the prosecutor will prosecute the breach, without forwarding the file to the sanctioning official. We also find this positive. What is also good, but actually exists for a long time, is that administrative suspension or withdrawal of an authorisation granted by the municipality can be imposed.

Whatever our group stands behind is the reduction of age. This is a good measure. I apologize for the colleagues who have taken a different opinion. As a parent of several children, I can only support that. People, even young people, who are old enough to cause inconvenience, should be reassured. It is all the better if this is done preventively. A preventive approach may be very helpful for some people.

If it should be less preventive – there is indeed a category of young people who do not want to listen – then it should be done. We must not be afraid of a repressive approach where it is necessary. Respect must be learned, every day again, ladies and gentlemen. As far as we are concerned, it is primarily about prevention, but there may also be a lot of repression.

These were some positive points, Mrs. Minister, but there are, of course, also some negative elements.

You say that the autonomy of the municipalities is very important and that we must preserve it. We must give each municipality the opportunity to fight the disaster itself. I still want to believe that. However, municipal autonomy is limited by the judicial reality. The parks are less and less inclined to prosecute certain crimes and shift the hot potatoes to the municipalities.

The municipal autonomy is being restricted, and that is something that we must follow with the necessary attention. A number of violations have been removed from the criminal law and can only be punished with a GAS. I think this is a bad evolution. I ask myself a lot of questions.

During the committee meeting I confronted you with a number of mixed infringement procedures, of which you had to admit that there are backdoors and that there are gaps to which you did not have an immediate response. I would like to briefly explain some of them.

This is very technical, but we have to go through it. In the case of mixed infringements, the minutes of the trial shall be forwarded to the Prosecutor of the King. The sanctioning official will receive a copy. The further handling is then divided depending on whether or not there is a protocol.

Suppose, Mrs. Minister, that there is no protocol and that it is a serious mixed infringement. The King’s Prosecutor may then, within two months, inform the sanctioning official if he considers an administrative measure opportune, but he himself will not take action on the infringement. In other words, as you confirmed in the committee, without notification from the King’s Prosecutor in those two months, the sanctioning official can do nothing.

What after that deadline? If the King’s Prosecutor does not act within the two-month period and if the sanctioning official does nothing, it may be questioned whether the Prosecutor’s Office will be informed. You said in the committee that this is not the case. I think the public prosecutor should be aware of this, so that it can still act on its own if it sees that the official is not doing anything.

I give a second case. There is no protocol and the breach is a slight mixed breach.

Again, in the present case, a two-month period applies to inform whether the prosecutor’s office is dealing with the case. If he does not make the communication within the specified deadline, the sanctioning official may prosecute. In other words, only if no communication from the prosecutor follows, the sanctioning official can act. He is not obliged to act. If he does not act, what will happen? As you say, nothing happens if necessary. You also found that itself a gap that may still need to be fixed.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Logghe, this is the case if there is no protocol between the parliament and the municipality. One of the advantages of the current bill is that we will generally have a protocol between the parliament and the municipality. In the protocol, we can specify different shortcuts of deadlines and more. That is one of the advantages.

I understand this perfectly. I only point out to you that if the official does not act, which he should normally do, the prosecutor’s office will in no way be informed of the facts. Then of course we left. Nothing happens. At that time, the control system is completely disappearing.

Mrs. Minister, I spoke to you about the procedure for the immediate payment of administrative fines. You have announced this procedure with a lot of aplomb. It was a new, strong measure.

However, the conditions are not wrong. It is only valid for adults and only in case of parking infringements or administrative fines. It is also applicable only if there is no permanent residence in Belgium. Only the police can apply the procedure. A perpetrator – Mrs. Minister, this is the most difficult condition – can simply refuse to pay, after which the normal procedure is simply followed. In that case, we left again.

In other words, the Flemish Belang fears that the immediate payment procedure for administrative fines will be a blow in the water and will simply not produce anything.

There are a number of backdoors in the procedures.

There is a new mixed infringement, in particular the destruction and damage of graves.

What is important to us, and what I consider to be important and ⁇ annoying, is that theft is now qualified as a minor mixed infringement rather than a serious mixed infringement. Mrs. Minister, I can’t understand how you qualify theft as a minor mixed infringement. For us, theft is a heavy mixed infringement that must be prosecuted again by the parquets.

Certain rights of certain offenders are extended. We have difficulty with the fact that minors with only a maximum of fifteen hours of community service can be fined.

You want to introduce the fines only after the mandatory mediation. If this does not work, we will use the community service. I don’t understand why you want to limit it to minors.

In the committee we also talked about practices in cities and municipalities that demonstrate that the GAS fines go beyond their goal of reducing the inconvenience. It is increasingly reduced to an ordinary pest tax. For some cities and municipalities, it seems to be very easy financial sources. That perception permeates the citizens, and once that is there, we are very far from home.

The rule of law may be compromised because the separation of powers is no longer total. The belief of colleague Somers in the trias politica is slowly demonstrated. I can get income there. I do not understand that this Parliament is taking advantage of the tendency to buy off as many infringements as possible with a monetary sanction. I do not understand where you want to go.

Our fundamental objection is that there is too little movement in our justice to still be able to believe in the temporaryity of your GAS law. On the contrary, everything indicates that we are evolving towards an extensive sanctions system with an ever-expanding list of officials. If it was indeed a struggle against discomfort, then you had a very enthusiastic supporter of Vlaams Belang.

During a committee meeting, I heard a colleague from another political party say that we, as mayors and shapes, should be alert to the fact that this extension of the existing regulations could generate a lot of new income. When I hear this, Mrs. Minister, I spit my ears and begin to realize that there is something else going on than just the struggle against discomfort.

Again, in order to warn you that you are not on the right track for us, the Flemish Interest Group will abstain at the vote. We cannot approve this extension without making a number of corrections. However, I do not see any corrections, so we will abstain in any case. I look forward to your responses to my comments.

I will be brief as many things have already been said.

We will vote on a mechanism that already exists and which is now extended to some degradations, to poorly parked cars – problems facing which municipalities were poor – and, we have long spoken about it, to acts committed by minors from fourteen years old. I would like to repeat that these incivilities concern only a minority of individuals, adults or not, but that poison the lives of a majority of people, of all ages too.

Ideally, prosecutors should be able to prosecute these incivilities. However, this is not the case today. That is why, to take a term from Ms. Galant, we believe that it is necessary to opt for a pragmatic solution, which does not leave these acts unpunished and which allows to respect the living together.

I would like to address five points. First, this is a possibility that is granted to the municipalities. I would like to welcome this text, because it has the merit of making the system in force transparent. Thus, the municipalities will decide on measures adapted to their respective situations. We want to trust local representatives, because they have the ability to react in a proportionate way to problematic behaviors, depending on the municipality in which they sit. We know that a rural municipality does not necessarily experience the same kind of incivilities as a large city.

It is also planned that the adoption of municipal regulations will systematically be the subject of democratic debate within the municipal councils. It will also be possible to discuss the extension of penalties to minors or even the citizenship benefit. We provide a framework.

Secondly, in the case of minors, this framework is structural. It provides for a cascade procedure, parental involvement, mandatory mediation and citizen benefit, with the fine as a last resort. This has already been said by the Minister. These innovations can be evaluated, but they obviously do not replace the prevention work that is done in advance, even before the crime is committed and which is not included in SACs – contrary to what some have sometimes implied. This work is carried out in communes, but also through communities. This remains a priority for us. The enlargement to minors is important to us because we want these young people – and I speak as a teacher to 14 and 15 year old students – to become aware that they are breaking rules.

In fact, educating also means setting limits and making them respect. In this perspective, SACs also protect all adolescents who are often the first victims of innocence, racist or sexist insults by other young people.

Third, the role of the official. I could hear some in the committee issue reservations regarding the independence of the sanctioning official who would be both a judge and a party.

I think the minister will respond as she did in a committee to this comment, but the draft still provides for a series of safeguards in order to ensure the objectivity of decisions. The control of the independence of the sanctioning official consists in particular in the possibility for the municipalities and for the offender to bring an appeal against the decisions before the judicial instances.

Just to increase the guarantees of independence, we have filed an amendment extending the right of appeal of the municipalities to all decisions of the sanctioning official, whether or not he decides to impose a sanction. In any case, the municipality has this recourse.

Fourth point, the practice of the field. Many mayors have spoken about this. For us, the recommendations of sanctioning officials and detection agents are also important. It will be necessary to see in use how this law meets the expectations of the municipalities.

Finally, last point, the project provides that an evaluation of the system will take place. This requires qualitative and quantitative analysis. The project provides for the creation of a register of municipal administrative penalties, in order to have accurate and reliable data to be analyzed. In parallel, the majority asked, by an amendment, the minister to produce a report every two years on the application of the law, on the statistics and available numerical data.

For the CDH, this project was needed. It may not be suitable for everyone. We wore it. Our Minister will defend it later. The majority supported it. I think, unlike others, that many municipalities expect this improvement of the system.

For us, this project was indispensable because it encourages a society of respect: respect for each other, respect for rules and respect for living together.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the Ecolo-Groen Group remains firmly opposed to this bill. We were opposed from the beginning, but we wanted to conduct the parliamentary debate correctly and until its end. First of all, we requested that hearing on this subject be held on a social scale. Then, in vain, we relayed the requests of the delegates for the rights of the French and Dutch-speaking child to be heard. Finally, we introduced a batch of amendments that were all swept back by the majority in commission. of which act.

Many aspects of the bill are, in our opinion, still in question, such as the reduction of the age, the introduction of a place ban, the increase of the amount of fines, the self-financing of the municipal security policy, and I pass. At the same time, the bill omits a number of things, such as putting an end to the series of absurd and inappropriate sanctions applied in an unequal manner in the different municipalities, which raises the question of the equality of Belgian citizens in the face of the reality of what are and will become administrative sanctions in our municipalities.

While our municipalities already use administrative sanctions, and if these are actually sometimes necessary and useful, especially when mayors find that crimes are committed on the territory of their municipality and remain unpunished, the fundamental problem of the project is that it decriminalizes a series of behaviors that would have previously been dealt with by justice. In this sense, administrative sanctions are contrary to the principle that, in a rule of law, sanctions are imposed by a judge because the judge is effectively able to enforce the rights of defence.

The system of municipal administrative sanctions does not offer these guarantees. The draft law on municipal administrative sanctions is therefore, somewhere, a confession of failure in relation to the shortcomings of the prosecutor’s office and justice. Instead of strengthening the prosecutor’s office and infusing a major justice reform – and God knows if it requires it! – the parties of the federal majority, both left and right, are turning towards a system that undermines an essential value of the rule of law in Belgium.

For us, the real political ambition would have been to strengthen the prosecutor’s office and our judicial system as a whole. This is precisely where the fundamental criticism of environmentalists is based on the project that is presented to us today. The latter did not fail to react to many actors in the judicial world itself, including honorary peace judge Jan Nolf, who was no less than asking for a moratorium on administrative sanctions. I quote it:

“We must question the system itself. GAS becomes a mood reflex for everything that goes wrong and now threatens to become a system that denaturates our youth policy. One of the essential problems in the system is the lack of independence of the sanction officer. Now you are facing someone who is both a judge and a party. The basic principles of the democratic rule of law become inexplicable, especially to young people. This works anti-pedagogically for these young citizens in becoming."

Therefore, despite all that has just been mentioned, it is time to vote on a draft fundamental reform of the system of administrative sanctions. A fundamental redesign of course, but whose well-foundedness is neither proved by the evaluation of the existing system, for which we have almost no statistics regarding its application in our municipalities, nor on the basis of an in-depth parliamentary work that could have been fueled by hearings of the many field actors who have not failed to be heard and to be offended by the way they have been kept out of debate.

The federal government justifies the reform of the SAC system by an alleged greater efficiency of the future system. Environmentalists are questioning. How can we build a more efficient system if we have not evaluated the functioning and efficiency of the current system?

However, there is a point of consensus among the few surveys on the SAC system. The system is only very little applied (1-2% for minors aged 16 to 18). Several members of the committee, including the mayor of their municipalities, have also stated this in the committee.

You say that it is very little applied, especially for young people aged 16 to 18.

I received the settlement from the town of Ottignies, whose mayor has been an environmentalist for some time. When I read this regulation, it applies to minors, which did not seem to cause you a lot of trouble. I heard your colleague talk about the protests. Here, I see that for any public demonstration, for any organized gathering that does not have the authorization of the mayor, there are fines that go up to 250 euros. And I’m not talking about medium-sized demonstrations. It is said that there is a whole series of nocturnal tapings that are repressed, that small demonstrations must be closed at 01:00. I give you the details, but it is still ten pages of administrative fines in a municipality managed for years by an ecologist mayor. I don’t know if you read this regulation before making your presentation. As for the application to minors between 16 and 18 years old, things are very precise. I also pass on to you with regards to cups, drinks, parties, etc.

You say that regulations containing measures of administrative sanctions are struck on young people, but we find this kind of regulations in Ottignies!

I can understand some things.

Between the big speeches and the facts, it is good to make the big gap but it might be time to consult your base who, she, knows what it is to manage a commune, before coming to give us lessons!

I have two questions to answer to you.

First of all, thank you for giving us this information. I see that you have done your duties since the discussions in committees since during these, you did not have an assessment of the different municipalities. You seem to have targeted...

You are of bad faith. You may be in election campaign and make slogans on the internet, but you are misinforming young people. Personally, I prefer to inform them about the reality of the facts.

I will also communicate Amay’s regulation which is not sad in terms of administrative sanctions and that of Boitsfort.

We remain opposed to the application of administrative sanctions for minors. Olivier too; he said so.

Can we leave Mr. Jade to continue? Otherwise, I will have to give him some extra time to speak.

There is no assessment of the system in place. I can see that you are delayed in this matter. It is good.

Several mayors have stated in the committee that they do not apply it to minors. It’s a fact, you’ve heard it like me! My own mayor, in Herstal, made the same comment. Therefore, how can the majority believe that it is reasonable and necessary to apply to minors aged 14 to 16 a system that the majority parties do not already apply in their own municipality to minors aged 16 to 18? And how can she believe that the lowering of age is now justified? We are still waiting for an answer to this question.

It is important to note, in any case, that the bill does not answer the many questions and criticisms formulated in their written contribution by an impressive number of field actors. I still ask myself today about the reasons for the repeated refusal of the majority to organize real hearings on such a sensitive and fundamental topic for the future of ‘living together’ in our society.

So where did this stubbornness come from to want to chain the debate? Failed act or confession of embarrassment of a disparate majority and, at the same time, impermeable to dialogue with the outside?

Do I have to recall here that the President of the Wallonia-Brussels Community, Rudy Demotte, sent a letter to the President of the Interior Committee ...

by Mr. Rudy Demotte told me personally that he was not even aware of the signature of this letter and that he regretted it. He was his cabinet chief.

Well, I, the letter, I saw her and she said that! I don't know his signature by heart but his name was in it.

In any case, his letter related the comments and criticisms expressed by the General Delegate for the Rights of the Child and strongly pleaded in favor of the hearing of the latter. by Mr. Demotte, or his supervisor, questioned in particular the compatibility of administrative sanctions against minors with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I will also recall the virulent criticisms of the Minister of Youth Aid of the Wallonia-Brussels Community, Évelyne Huytebroeck. For yes, dear colleagues, this bill affects young people, their rights and duties, and these belong precisely to the competence of the community, especially if we take into account the upcoming communitarianization of the sanctional law of the youth.

Confronted with an end of not receiving the majority, the Ecolo-Groen group, in collaboration with ECOLO J and Jong Groen, therefore organized hearings to which actors were invited to meet whom Parliament refused to meet, among them VVSG, ACBC, representatives of the academic world, Youth Council, Vlaamse Jeugdraad... These informal hearings, organized by our parliamentary group, allowed to cross the questions and criticism that could be the subject of this bill. I will come back point by point.

For environmentalists, the need for a SAC system for our municipalities is not to be questioned in the absolute. Its implementation modalities, on the other hand, must be subject to increased control in the event that they are potentially applied in an excessive or inadequate manner by some poorly inspired municipal majorities.

SACs are indeed sometimes the most appropriate and effective sanction in the maintenance of public order, but they must always be predictable and applied in respect of fundamental freedoms and guarantees of the rights of defence of the person concerned.

The ecologists would have wanted, but it has not been, that the government limits the ability of municipalities to constitute offences for any and any behavior, on the basis of an assessment of the system established, while respecting the autonomy of the municipalities and keeping in line with the aim aimed: to improve the living together in the municipalities. This is the register option, as it is applied in the Netherlands, for example.

For let us not be mistaken, the implementation of administrative sanctions has a cost for the municipalities – this was stressed during the debates – and no financial means is provided in the bill. As said by a socialist this afternoon, one can therefore fear in the head of some ediles the temptation to want to ‘make the number’ by even sanctioning behaviors whose character of uncivility would remain to be demonstrated.

Dear colleagues, if you allow it, I will now detail the fundamental criticism that our group wishes to raise in the discussion of this text. Criticisms that lead us today to re-submit amendments that we consider essential. The main objections that we have to formulate are five.

First, the problematic nature of mixed offences.

The concept of mixed offences, by its nature, is problematic with regard to the principle of separation of powers (an executive body which is assigned judicial powers) and by the absence, at the level of the municipal administration, of the legal guarantees provided by the judicial power, at the level of the municipal administration.

Ten years ago, you voted for a list of mixed offences, punches and injuries, insults, theft, threats of attack – I removed that element that I thought was excessive –, the degradation of tombs, etc. You voted for it and now, ten years later, you say to yourself that it wasn’t a good idea.

As I said earlier, the only change we made in the mixed offences is to extend it to the problem of parking. This is not dramatic when one observes that you had no problem in ‘denialing’, as you say, the facts of strikes and injuries, theft, insults and threats of attack.

Someday I will have to explain your consistency.

I will do it.

I want young people to hear that too.

They will hear it. I return to the absence of evaluation.

With young people it is good, but lying to them is less.

That is why we wanted an evaluation of the system in place and that is also why we blame you for not evaluating it before you want to vote on this bill.

You talk about written contributions that have been received and your meetings that preceded the writing of this project. What do we see? Among the contributions, I will pinpoint the opinion of the Union of Cities and Communes of Wallonia. It notes that some of the mixed offences listed in the bill should be subject to exclusively criminal courts in view of their gravity (facts or mild violence, simple voluntary beating and injury, or theft. She adds: "Treatment through administrative sanctions of such serious facts participates in a real disinvestment of the State in its judicial apparatus to leave the care to another authority (the municipality) to exercise a form of justice with a palliative character."The Union of Cities and Communes of Wallonia also insists on the primacy that must be ⁇ ined, in terms of findings, to the police services. While detection officers should be able to participate in municipal public order policies, police services should be able to remain the first link of public security, ⁇ at the local level. It could not be a question of seeking, through SACs, to multiply or professionalize detection agents that could, tomorrow, constitute a paralocal police, or even a private police. It is not an ecologist who writes it, but the Union of Cities and Communes of Wallonia! Finally, it emphasizes the need to make adequate financial resources available to the municipalities – which is not contained in your bill, Mrs. Minister.

First, we just planned a memorandum of understanding, based on a local security plan strategy. It is in this context that the choices will be formed with the prosecutors, especially depending on the type of crime. I do not think they will take absurd measures regarding mixed offenses.

Then, when it comes to funding, one of the indirect benefits of this project is that it allows municipalities, in complicated times that will not allow them to have heavenly manners to finance prevention and security policies, to benefit from revenue that they will be able to re-inject into these policies, especially with regard to young people.

The system is self-financed.

Hence the perverse effect that we fear to see the will to make a figure to get back into the municipal budget, and therefore to take administrative sanctions to take administrative sanctions!

You say yourself – and on this point I can join you – that we need, at the local level, to invest additional funds in prevention. We do our best; we will come up with new contracts and strategic plans, etc. We have not reduced the resources at all, but on the contrary!

But here it is just a good way to be able to invest in prevention policies for young people, and not just repressive policies. It is also a matter of municipal autonomy.

You talked about majority municipalities. I heard Mr. Eric Thiébaut said today and in a committee that administrative sanctions cost money to his municipality, that he feared that in some municipalities, a number is made, that the socialist group was not fully satisfied with the bill that seems so perfect to other majority parties. He indicated that we would make the sanction to make the sanction, to get back into the municipal budgets.

Obviously, we can only welcome the allocation of these amounts to prevention but, for us, administrative sanctions must be applied in accordance with the principle of fairness and the budgetary aspect must not be an objective in itself.

I told you that it was an indirect consequence.

The concept of conflict of interest.

I come, if you allow it, to the second ecologist criticism that relates to the ambiguous role and the level of training of the sanctioning official.

The sanctioning official has, according to the bill, a real judgment power of a judge. He decides whether or not to impose a penalty; he decides the type of penalty and its level. He can commute an alternative that would not have succeeded in fine, etc.

During the discussions in the committee, the minister wanted to clarify that the independence of the sanctioning officials would be specified by royal decree. We take good note of this and will not fail to be attentive to the content of the said decree. At least it will need to provide the necessary guarantees related to such a function in our rule of law, which are three, namely the impartiality of the sanctioning official who cannot be judge and party, the independence and objectivity of the latter.

During the hearings we held on April 15, 2013, several field actors called for better training of the detection officers and the sanctioning officer of a municipality. Sanctioning officers will have to undergo training specific to their assessment competence (judging a litigation) and specific training on youth law, since young people aged 14 may be subject to administrative sanctions.

In terms of lowering the minimum age, environmentalists believe that the bill stigmatizes young people and excludes them from a policy of living together in the municipality. The SAC system towards minors is ineffective and seems to them to be very rarely applied. It has no pedagogical scope of liability of the minor.

Environmentalists call for strengthening the educational and pedagogical measures developed by the youth protection and assistance sector in Belgium. In addition, minors are more vulnerable than others. Therefore, environmentalists cannot accept the application of SACs from 14 years of age.

On this point of reducing the age, the Advisory Commission of Youth Organizations believes that the extension of the SAC system to young people from 14 years of age suggests that these sanctions are indeed directed against a part of the population. It is mainly young people, who are more dependent on public space for their leisure, social and cultural activities, who are targeted.

As regards the increase in the maximum amount of the fine, no objective element supports this substantial increase – except, as you said, to reimburse the costs – nor the extension of the applicable penalties which resembles actual penalties for the convicted without however presenting the applicable guarantees in criminal matters. If a higher penalty is deemed necessary, it is up to the criminal judge to decide.

Finally, the prohibition of place must remain a prerogative of the judiciary. The freedom to go and come is indeed a fundamental freedom too important for environmentalists to leave a municipal executive the possibility to limit it in one way or another. Only a judge can limit this freedom. To put this mission on the shoulders of a mayor, with even fewer guarantees of the rights of defence, is unacceptable.

For all these reasons, Ecolo-Groen parliamentarians will vote against this project which we consider carries multiple dangers and potential perverse effects. For environmentalists, administrative sanctions should only be applied with common sense, fairness and paramountness, while leaving to a justice reinforced by human and financial means the care to ensure the follow-up of the most serious crimes.

That is why, in any case, the environmental representatives will not fail to intervene at the level of municipal councils in order to best frame a federal text at the local level – or even completely rearrange it – which opens the door to obvious potential deviations.

To the colleagues of the majority, I will ask for the last time to reconsider, at the time of the vote, the appeal recently launched by 213 field associations, the call of the delegates for the rights of the child, of representatives of the judiciary world; to reconsider also the positions of different political youths.

Environmentalists have appreciated the recent positions of several mayors who have already stated that they would not apply administrative sanctions irrationally and ⁇ not to minors under 14.

But if some of you really feel that this bill that is submitted to us is inopportune and goes too far on these points, if some go so far as to commit themselves not to apply them in their communes as it was said this afternoon, then they show coherence and do not vote on the text!

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are beginning to get tired of this now long debate on administrative sanctions. The government has promised this bill for more than a year. This is the great announcement effect of the government’s security policy: the filing of a bill aimed at reforming, rewriting the modalities of administrative sanctions.

The first thing to say in this debate: what is at stake is not the question of whether, in some cases, it is necessary to punish. Of course, it is necessary to punish when there are violations of the rules of common life. It requires a whole range of practical modalities of sanctions: mediation, works of general interest, an administrative sanction, a sanction in the form of a fine. The question is not there. The question here is: what are the ways by which it is effectively punished in this country?

I will first recall – I said it during the debate in the committee – that if we are here and have a mechanism of municipal administrative sanctions in Belgium, it is because for more than twenty years, successive governments have not been able to find ways to make justice work more effectively.

This is the problem. The budgetary resources...

I think I know that you have been, for some time, a member of a party that has belonged to the majority for more than ten years. You were part of the government.

That does not prevent me from saying it. You may be bothered, but I keep my words.

I just ask you to be a little more consistent.

Mr. Clerfayt, so far everyone has been able to speak and I want that to continue.

I just like to say that I like consistency. God knows, Mr. Clerfayt, if your interventions sometimes lack relevance! But if the opposition’s speech is sympathetic, we should not be amnesic.

I did not have any amnesia. I just honestly said that all the governments that have succeeded each other for 20 years – I have not cited one or another political party – have not found the way to make justice function properly. They did not give him sufficient means to deal with all violations of rules, laws, police rules, the Road Code, etc.

I would like to remind you that municipal administrative sanctions are only a second-rate response to a real problem, to a real problem facing the neighborhoods, to a real popular demand, namely to respect the rules of common life. It seems to me – I want to recall it here – that it would have been better to have the political courage to address the issue of the functioning of justice and to equip the latter with sufficient means to work properly.

The implementation of administrative sanctions has, so far, suffered a number of difficulties due, in particular, to an imperfect legislation – the first mouth date from 1999 – which has had to be revised and corrected many times, by a whole series of reparative laws. These various reversals in the law are echoed by the fact that the Vereniging van Vlaamse Steden in Gemeenten, the Association of Flemish Cities and Communes, has adapted its manual of instructions to communes 21 times in 13 years of existence of administrative sanctions. This means how much the rules and procedures have been constantly changed. And I fear that once again they will be modified while the text still does not seem perfect to me and that we will be brought, tomorrow, to correct it once more.

I fear that again, this bill misses its goal, in particular because it does not provide adequate funding for the municipalities supposed to implement it. My group, the FDF, also highlighted other gaps and inconsistencies in the text and submitted a series of amendments to the Committee on the Interior, amendments which I will re-submit here in the plenary session.

The first problem is the following. Since the government has not found the means to refinance justice, to give itself the appropriate means to be efficient, modern, to computerize itself, to have premises and sufficient personnel to deal with all the crimes that are brought to it, justice has focused on the most serious, the most important cases and left all small affairs in disherence. There was a popular demand to find a solution. The only solution for this government was the introduction of administrative sanctions.

But this bill reinforces the old mechanism. It further expands the transfer of duties and competences to municipalities. It is further oriented towards the establishment of a neighborhood judge: the sanctioning official, which also gives a hybrid character to Belgian justice. In doing so, do we not deviate from the tasks of local authorities? Is it not a mistake of power by confusing judicial power and local executive power?

Furthermore, this transfer of charges to municipalities is carried out without transfer of the means necessary for its implementation. A study by the VVSG highlighted personnel costs, in the cost of managing the files represented by SACs for municipalities. These costs are on average more than twice the amount of the administrative fine in Flanders. Contrary to what you said in the committee and what you just said in response to Mr. These mechanisms of administrative sanctions cost the municipalities. Even if your project highlights the maximum amount of penalties that can be applied to citizens in breach, this system will continue to cost the municipalities. This is a real transfer of charges. The federal state does not finance more and better justice. It decrees that the communes can do so and bear the costs of this nearby justice.

Mr Clerfayt, the debate took place in the committee. Beyond the explanations given about the funding, all the mayors or local representatives who were present told you that the extension through the need to enforce the rules on road safety, was a complementary element in terms of possible revenue. Therefore, you cannot simply calculate the current capacities, as they are revised upwards, ⁇ through this extension. This has been explained long.

I heard it well. Therefore, it is a pity, Madame the Minister, that the amendment I submitted was rejected, which consisted in inviting the municipalities to submit annually a report on the implementation of the administrative sanctions concerning the cost of their personnel and the yield of these fines in order to be able, year after year, to verify whether your claim is true. Or if the assertion that I carry on behalf of the communes, which is also the message that the Association of Cities and Communes of Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels carries, what the field officials say is the truth. If one had asked for a report, one would have obtained the truth without quarrelling by presenting assertions without evidence. That would have been the best way to act.

We also regret that the municipalities were not allowed, in some cases, to impose higher fines than the amounts you have registered: the maximum amount is raised from 250 to 350 euros. In a number of cases, especially in case of recurrence or in case of dirt, clandestine deposition, the cost for the municipality of the removal of the trash, waste abandoned on the public space is much higher than these amounts. It would therefore have been legitimate to allow the municipalities, in these specific cases, to collect fines more in relation to the cost of cleaning and treating these incivilities.

The second novelty of the project is the citizen service and the issue of mediation

These proposals are a priori sympathetic; we are not opposed to the principle of this hierarchy of sanctions, nor that one can, in some cases, proceed to this mediation and, in others, to a citizen’s benefit.

Nevertheless, I will express to you the concern that we share with the Association of Cities and Communes of the Brussels Region, in particular. The responses you gave us in the commission did not reassure us.

This concern concerns the application in the municipalities of these two alternatives provided for in article 4, § 2 of the bill: the citizen’s benefit and mediation.

We support such alternatives, but there are still many questions. Who will take care of the management of mediation? Should the rules of labour law apply to citizen benefits? I think, yes, and its implementation will be very expensive for the municipalities.

Who will frame them? What funding is planned?

In fact, the other citizens’ benefits, those which are subject to judicial decisions through alternative judicial measures framework services, receive specific funding from the federal state. Here, you do not provide any financing measures, which confirms my interpretation: there is a form of transfer of charges to the municipalities.

I have provided a lot of explanations in the committee, so I refer to the report.

With regard to services, these are those that are approved, whether by the court or by the municipalities. I do not think that labour law will apply to a citizen’s benefit. Minimum protective measures must be taken by arrest. That is what is planned.

Thank you for confirming that there will be more work for these associations without receiving more funding. That is exactly what I was saying at the moment.

The third novelty in this bill: it is the reduction of the age from which a minor can be punished, namely 14 years. My group opposes it. We are not the only ones. Others have spoken before me. I think in particular of the white paper drafted jointly by the Jong CD&V, by Animo (sp.a), by the Jong VLD and by the Young Socialist Movement, who reiterated their refusal on the occasion of an article published today in De Morgen, of which I quote a sentence: "All deputies who vote for this law must be aware of their heavy responsibility. For us, this bill has become a symptom of a bitter society where tolerance towards others and young people seems more distant than ever." Per ⁇ they will soon sit on those banks and correct this bill!

In 2010, you participated well in the federal elections. You are supporting a program. And what did he say about administrative sanctions and the reduction of the age to 14 years? Unless you have read this program, which was the project of society that you defended before the citizens. We also need to be consistent.

I will remind you, Madame Milquet, if you have not followed the news, that the FDF has regained their independence and now defends their own program. If I had to remind you what was in yours about the periphery, I could also show you a series of principles that you did not respect!

So, in 2010, you were imposed a program under the threat of a Kalachnikov? Did you not have a free assessment of the beliefs you defended in front of your fellow citizens?

Mrs. Milquet, I will report to you the piles of commitments you signed regarding the enlargement of Brussels to the periphery and that you did not respect in the agreement you approved.

Can we go back to administrative sanctions?

Now on to the penalties applicable to minors.

For us, this measure causes a radical break with the current vision of the right to youth protection. The French Community’s General Delegate for the Rights of the Child also insisted on this element on Monday 15 April during hearings organized in the Senate, denouncing the arbitrary character of the choice to lower the punishable age to 14 years and the non-compliance of this measure with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Moreover, it is more than likely that this penalty will be ineffective for the young person because, most often, it will be his parents who will pay. But even if the young man can pay this administrative fine himself, this measure is stupidly contented to put the debts on the shoulders of the young man. It does not question structural causes, social problems such as school absence or the lack of parental involvement in education. Instead, the approach should be part of a perspective aimed at giving more resources to the youth court. We return to my initial denunciation because we need to give tone to policies related to youth problems.

Furthermore, before the filing of this bill, there was no assessment of the current arrangement for minors aged 16 to 18. In addition, a study conducted by the same General Delegate for the Rights of the Child of the French Community shows that the system of municipal administrative sanctions has rarely been used in relation to minors aged 16 to 18. What about minors aged 14 to 16? I think this is rather an advertising effect to make you acceptable compared to the N-VA. I am surprised that a minister who claims to be a humanist goes in such a direction.

With the amendment that we are still submitting to the plenary session, we intend to maintain the current 16-year threshold. The sanctioning official will therefore not be able to impose the payment of an administrative fine on minors under 14 until the age of 16. He will be able to impose administrative sanctions for the major and minors over the age of 16, namely citizenship benefits and mediation.

I do not go back to the practical problems of information duties with respect to parents that I have denounced in the committee. I am also not concerned with the unnecessarily long and unnecessary nature of a series of verbal texts that allow neighboring municipalities to vote on common regulations. That possibility already exists. It does not need to be included in the law. These are unnecessary texts and phrases that add nothing to the essence of the law.

I regret, however, that the offence of public drunkenness is not included in the list of mixed offences. According to the College of Prosecutors General, public drunkenness without aggravating circumstances should no longer be regarded as a criminal offence but rather as an act of disturbance to society that should fall under the application of a municipal administrative sanction. We have submitted an amendment in this regard; it agrees with the Attorney General’s Opinion. I wish it could be voted on at the time of the vote on the text.

If these administrative sanctions were to be applied, it was necessary not only to provide for financing so that the municipalities could have the means to implement the complex arrangements that you provide in this regulation, but it was also necessary to simplify the part of the findings. We are surprised by certain provisions regarding the findings.

The draft law provides that municipal officers can only find offenses related to stop and parking as well as offenses that can only be subject to administrative sanctions. Thus, mixed offences can only be found by officials and police auxiliaries. Therefore, municipal officials will be asked to better know the laws texts and the distinction between the offences qualified by the police regulations alone and those qualified by the police regulations and the Criminal Code to be able to distinguish the circumstances in which they can intervene. This is extremely complex and it will not facilitate the task of community detection agents. Therefore, it will be very difficult for them to know all these legal provisions.

For example, the violation of the general police regulations of a municipality that would be to urinate on the public road is also constitutive of a public outrage to good morals. In this type of case, it is not possible for officers to know all the accumulations of qualifications because the various legislations with which the General Police Regulations can cross are constantly evolving. As a result, the FDF will submit amendments to Articles 20 and 21 of the draft to give community officers the power to establish all violations that can be subject to an administrative sanction.

There is another inconsistency regarding the finding. It relates to the offences relating to stop and parking. According to the text of the government, they cannot be detected by agents of guard companies responsible for the control of regulated parking. The fact of not attributing this competence to the latter will lead to aberrant situations. Officials of private enterprises or municipal governments who are authorized to draw up infringements on regulated parking shall not be able to draw up a record for a vehicle parked on a pedestrian passage or on a sidewalk. The citizen will therefore not understand anything of the verbalization policy that is carried out in the municipal territory. Therefore, we also wish to amend Article 21 in order to extend the competence to establish infringements referred to in Article 3, 3° to employees of guardianship companies appointed for this purpose by the municipal council.

I am not talking about the lack of motivation obligation to charge the prosecutor when he decides not to pursue. I regret the position you held in the committee for not amending the bill.

However, I will return to one of the novelty that I think is not suitable in this bill, namely the prohibition of place.

In its opinion, the Privacy Protection Commission rightly highlights the problems that the provisions on the place ban will bring about. First, the concrete interpretation of the measure will differ significantly from one municipality to another. The principle of equality will not be respected.

Furthermore, since each municipality will be able to promulgate and register a place ban valid only for its territory, the persons responsible for accidents subject to a place ban in a municipality A will be able very easily to move to similar places in a municipality B to commit similar acts there. It would have been desirable that this prohibition of place be taken by a judge, so that the measure can then be applied to places of the same type, regardless of municipal borders.

Finally, the Privacy Protection Commission fears that each municipality constitutes a separate database of prohibitions of place and that ad hoc couplings between files from different municipalities are subsequently carried out without these exchanges relying on a global vision and any control.

That’s why we support the Commission’s recommendations that the ban on place and the related data recordings are not regulated by each municipality separately but that there is a national approach, entrusted to the parks, as in the context of the ban on stadium in the football legislation. We will submit an amendment in this regard.

In conclusion, the FDF group will vote against your project, not against the very principle of administrative sanctions, but against your project. This proposal does not appear to bring any improvement to the current legal provisions. The financing of this mechanism in the municipalities is not improved. The procedural constraints are ⁇ heavy. The fines will in some cases be far too low to correspond to the nature of the costs incurred by the municipalities to clean, repair the damage or end the incivilities. There are unnecessary complexities in the infringement findings.

In addition, your project introduces two innovations that we find inappropriate. The extension of penalties to minors from the age of 14 does not seem useful to us. We prefer that it be a youth judge who deals with the overall problem of a young person. The prohibition of place does not seem appropriate either, with the mayor as the competent authority and the municipality as the reference territory to issue such prohibitions, which should remain within the competence of the prosecutor’s office.

This is why your text, which we find confusing and complex, does not appear to us as a sufficient improvement compared to the current text to allow us to support it.

Much has already been said in the debate and I have already had the opportunity to speak a few times. I will limit myself to the essential.

I heard someone say – I think it was Mr. Somers – that according to the press, many members will vote in favour while they have a different idea. To explain what I think about it, I will read a piece that was published in October of last year. Ladies and gentlemen, then I will limit myself to a few comments, in order to end the debate here.

The piece is called "Everyone to the GAS": It is taken out of life. On April 7, 2012, 82-year-old Denise was the victim of a homejacking. It was the eighth time in a short period of time that a similar robbery happened in her apartment building. About additional surveillance or about the detection of the criminals is not news to date.

On the other day, April 8, Denise stood in the Eastern Leopold Park to crumble two butter hammer: for the cockroaches, in a protected corner, so that the cockroaches could not get there. Suddenly, an agent in civilian costume jumps out of the crop to verbalize the cultivated human for her crime: feeding frogs. On September 1, Denise received a fine in her bus of 59 euros and on top of it a ticket of 125 euros, tax on the collection and disposal of waste. A municipal administrative sanction. Since the GAS fines were introduced, our “packers” know their priorities: filling the municipal treasury. In such cases, victim assistance and psychological assistance should be provided, but then for the police. After the elderly, the fourteen-year-old criminals are now on their turn. From cat bad to worse. From bird horror to childhood leader. Anyone in the Hasselt police zone HAZODI who sits on the leash of a bench or throws a basketball in a swimsuit on a square must pass through the GAS-kassa. In addition to the field of Racing Club Anderlecht, in the 19 Brussels municipalities there are 19 different fines for spitting on the street stones. When I was a child riding my bike on the sidewalk, I had to write a hundred lines of punishment from the field guard. My father doubled the rate. At the urination in the water tank in the church there was a patriarchal rammeling, because that was far beyond.

Then you still had education and social control. Now you have cameras to detect the street anarchy, not to update them, because penalties should absolutely no longer deter and the police judge is too busy with traffic offenders. The wallet is a pedagogical alibi. Justice is now a municipal toy. The mayor plays the sheriff and pushes the GAS pedal. However, half of the GAS fines for shop theft are not paid in Antwerp, or adjusted by the OCMW for impotent turn-door criminals. The haves must stand up for the impunity of the have nots. The constitutional separation of powers is reduced to a piece of paper. Our sense of justice is measured with a flashbar, a parking meter and a GAS fine. It is always a cash.

When I then, colleagues, heard a few mayors, my mouth fell open. I have been in the Flemish Parliament for a while and I once said that the Flemish Parliament is a refined municipal council and the Flemish government is a refined ship college. Why did I say that then? Because it was full of mayors and creators, and because the legislation was made according to the request of municipal officials. I am experiencing the same thing here in Parliament. I come from a municipality where seven thousand gas fines were issued last year. Either it is a very criminal community, or something is going on.

We live in a country with the highest number of police officers per capita. There are approximately 49 000 police officers and CALog employees in our country. That is 1 per 225 inhabitants. This is the most of the entire European Union. We live in a country with the highest number of judges per capita. Today we say that they cannot control the situation. What should we do? We need to expand the system. We already did this in 1999. Why should I vote against? I am not against gas fines. Absolutely not. I also think that the criminal courts should be relieved somewhat, but what happens here today with this legislation? The fence is from the dam on a large number of levels. Let us take an example, Mrs. Minister.

Who can issue gas fines? Former peace judge Jan Nolf has said that the fight against crime has shifted from professionals to new-fashioned amateurs.

Has more blue failed on the street? I have already said that we are champions in the number of uniforms; whether or not they walk on the street is another matter. Our people are so criminal that we need many other people. We had city guards, parking guards and line spotters. Now we call them community guards.

These community guards are given a set of powers. Let’s go back in time. In the beginning, those community guards were usually people who would otherwise be assisted. We gave them a job, made them city guards and told them that they could make themselves useful to society and, for example, could check whether there are bicycles somewhere or not. Today we make it a packed municipal police, a municipal police light.

It is not enough to talk about municipalities. Those staff members, who have never received training or a qualification, now build on the Big Brother Company and even become staff members of the autonomous municipal companies, the province, the regions and the intercommunals.

Only 5 to 10 percent of the candidates who offer themselves in police schools succeed. What do we do at the same time? Jan and Mieke who work at an intercommunal or autonomous municipal company, we now give a sort of criminal function to execute the GAS system. Mrs. Minister, I do not understand that.

Another point that strikes me at the chest is the following. I find GAS not only undemocratic, but also anti-democratic. Let us look at the essence of the matter. I just said in my argument that half of the GAS fines imposed in Antwerp for shop theft are paid by the OCMW.

Are we not shooting with a cannon on a mosquito? I read another article from Mr. Termont today. Mr. De Clercq is not there, but ⁇ Mr. Bracke can deliver the message to Mr. Termont. He could do it with pleasure. Mrs. Temmerman can do that too, but in this case I trust Mr. Bracke more.

Why does Mr. Termont call today that fourteen years is almost not enough? He now denies that he wants gas fines from ten years, but we know those political areas.

Wouldn’t we even better think about the fact that we are shooting a gun on a mouse? Wouldn’t we even better think a little about the fact that our social structure has changed in recent times? We have an influx of people – I know it is dangerous to say this – who come from a different culture. They deal with a different pedagogical perspective and also with other forms of punishment. This is extremely difficult for us. Now we have to hide behind a cannon, with which we shoot a mosquito. We write out GAS fines for everything and more because the pedagogical profile has failed. In education, we can no longer punish, and pedagogical tick is already punishable. What should we then do? Well, we replace that with GAS fines and we impose them on young people from fourteen years of age. There are several other issues included in the law. We say to those younger people that we will give them a GAS fine, but they can talk about it again first. The municipalities already complain so much about administrative burdens, but now they also have to keep an account of administrative fines and then it needs to be discussed again. I have my concerns with that.

I have already told Mr. Vanvelthoven that I have my concerns about the separation of powers. I am a kind of liberal. What happens to gas fines when they are appealed?

I come from the city where the second-highest number of gas fines is issued in the whole country. In Antwerp, twelve thousand fines are issued on more than five hundred thousand inhabitants and in Oostende, seven thousand fines on seventy thousand inhabitants. Therefore, I think I can speak a little from experience.

A gas penalty can be imposed for anything. I mentioned that old bite. That is the truth: a fine of 59 euros for feeding the frogs, because it is forbidden at sea. Sometimes there could be mice. In addition, 125 euros will be paid for the feed. This was imposed on a 81 year old man. There are also GAS fines for those who let their dog walk too far on the rope. In Oostende one must have two types of leashes: one that leaves the space far away and a short one to keep the dog close. Those who go to the beach with their dog should keep him short on the rope, because there the dog should ⁇ not run away. Isn’t it, Mr The Friend? You know it as well as I. If I am wrong, I suggest that you correct me.

The GAS fine is usually 250 euros. What does the law now write for? We are going to make 350 euros. That is the cash! We have lost a little money: Dexia is gone, Electrabel brings nothing more, the Municipal Holding is bankrupt. Therefore, some mayors propose to adjust this loss a little.

Anyone who has received a gas penalty can appeal against it.

You must appeal to the ship college and to the mayor. Isn’t it, Mr The Friend? You know the corridor in the town hall of Oostende, you see it in front of your eyes. You can come in one morning, if you have time. 10 hours . There is a whole row of people waiting who want to appeal and have the right to speak with the mayor. For the mayor this is pleasant: he is Pope in his own parish. He can decide to lose that. Very striking, Mr. Landuyt, you as the mayor from a little further, just before the municipal council elections, a tremendous amount of those GAS fines have been saved. That is the reality.

Why do I say that? Why am I concerned as a liberal? Because with gans this system is violating the separation of powers. I said it: we are here in the Legislative Chamber. People who are mayors in their municipality defend that here. If you are the mayor of a municipality, you are the executive power there. legislative power and executive power. They also play for judicial power. I think, as a Democrat, dear friends, that this cannot be done.

I have one last point.

Mr. Dedecker, what you recently quoted cannot be done that way. The law stipulates that if one appeals, this is again with the sanctioning official. The sanctioning official decides in full autonomy whether to impose a fine or not. At least this is the case in my town and in other towns I know, too. What you describe here is ⁇ not happening everywhere and is not included in the law. I want to make this clear, because otherwise we would not approve of it. If this is the case in Ostende, then I also freeze the eyebrows. It is then up to the supervision to resolve such matters.

On Saturday, I will come to explain to your committee. You can inform yourself in the meantime, like Mr. Landuyt, which is not so difficult. Mr. Devriendt is here. In the Eastern coalition there are also two CD&V shapes, since human memory. You can rest assured of whether I tell the truth or not.

A second point that strikes me deeply, my colleagues, is the price. Can a reasonable person tell me why he should save from 250 euros to 350 euros? We have a mouth full of poverty, about 10 to 15 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Punishments usually go to people who color outside the lines. People are usually marginalized. I hear about wild places and more like that. A fine of three hundred and fifty euros is 45% of the subsistence minimum of a single person. That is 20.5% of the average income a Flaming earns. That is to say, for one administrative GAS fine one must work a week. There was already talk of persecution madness in the discussion of parking fines and flitspalls. Now comes this.

The worst thing is that the seas have to turn up again for the have nots. The fished in these, people at the bottom of society, often do not even pay their fines. They go to the OCMW. Those who color within the lines can be fined for this.

We have everything. We have speed law and criminal law. Now we are going to propagate GAS because Justice fails. Instead of giving justice the means, justifying it and assigning it theft and robbery, we choose the easiest way.

There are approximately 44 000 international standards and standards, approximately 31 000 European laws and approximately 100 000 Belgian laws and decrees. In 1989, there were only 20,000. Now we have 598 municipalities with each their own specific regulations and GAS regulations. I was keen to read them, but we have already discussed them. The caricature of the municipality of Mortsel has already been sketched. We can also talk about Ronse, Lokeren or Schaarbeek, where it is forbidden “to knock out or shake carpets or any other object above the public road”. The vacuum cleaner was invented in 1901.

You may not have missed it, but in recent years, the government and society have been constantly pressuring us to perfection. The constant pressure to be perfect takes on strange proportions. One expects a society of perfect people who do not interact with each other because they are perfect. We create a superman who does not drink alcohol, does not smoke, does not show any psychological abnormality, is not obese, does not suffer from malnutrition, does not drive too fast, does not take drugs, does not use excessive amounts of pills, is not loud, does not ring the bell, does not fold the carpet against the wall, does not sit on the couch of a couch, does not throw the wrong confetti. Otherwise, the government will come.

Can we still have flaws today, or must we live with the constant pressure to be perfect in the future? Can our children still scream loudly, can our children still dig out bad boys, can our children still discover the world through their mistakes? Can our children still be children, or do you want to imprison them as young as possible in your prison of rules and laws?

I am the last speaker for the Minister. Comfort yourself, I will really like it the shortest of all.

I want to apply one thing, but I can’t do it without saying I found this a good debate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving it the opportunity to take place. It is one of the few times in my short history here that there has really been an exchange of thoughts. I highly appreciate that. The debate that has been held here is a different debate than what we conducted in the committee. This was very thoroughly debated. All sorts of concerns can be raised, but the articles have been thoroughly examined. I highly appreciated this.

As a latter in politics, I had a bit of the idea that it was very much according to the separation between majority and opposition. However, this was not really concerned here. I have learned that this will be included. For example, I have read from Mr. Clerfayt a number of amendments that I personally thought he was right. They have been wiped out of the table. I’m not going to make a big drama of it, it’s what it is. If I, as a member of the N-VA, like something from Mr. Clerfayt, it must be ⁇ good. Mr Weyts will ⁇ note this.

I do not need to express the position of our group here, as this was excellently done by colleague Degroote. It is effectively a framework law and a stick behind the door, with an alternative and with opportunities to appeal. Of course, one should not make a caricature of it, ultimately it is a pragmatic solution to a social problem. Point on the line.

We will vote later and this draft is likely to be approved. In fact, it does not stop then, because one feels that this topic effectively strikes society.

The debate will also not stop, especially since the law will not come into force until half a year from now. I really need something from my heart. It came up to me this morning when I read the newspapers very early. I think one can expect some consistency and some coherence from those who approve the bill. I have all appreciation for those who do not endorse it. That is, of course, a legitimate choice, but if one endorses it, then I think one must be consistent and consistent. I wonder what kind of signal we are sending.

What I heard from the minister in the course of the debate, I found honestly, excusez le mot, flat. I heard a reference — I no longer know by whom — to a letter that has indeed arrived, signed by Mr. Demotte. However, it was said that Mr. Demotte informed that he had not written the letter himself, but that a collaborator had done so. I apologize, but I think that’s foolish, because then the person concerned should also openly give up.

I love the truth. Sometimes it is necessary to tell the truth. The letter was not signed by Mr Demotte at all. It was worth it to say that.

Mrs. Minister, I share your love for the truth, but that does not take away that I find that kind of argumentation quite flat. I cannot find another word for it. I find it even worse. I have tried to follow this debate well and I have been following the news sites as well. Well, to be honest, I found what came out there pretty shocking. I literally read you a message from a news site. You know how to do it. You type the hour and then make a short summary. One does not only look at this debate, one also looks at what is broadcast in the program Villa Politica, because that is of course a news source like any other, as the images of this Chamber Debate are also a news source. I quote: “15 u 45. Just like on VRT radio this morning, Villa Politica also passes one after the other politician who says that GAS fines are not necessary for him, but that he will vote for.”

Mr. De Croo, Mr. Bruno Tobback said he finds GAS fines “absurd,” but his party will vote today for the tightening of GAS fines.

Colleagues, I have learned in my life that there are Anderlechtsupporters and Club Bruggesupporters, but Anderlechtsupporters for Club Brugge, that is something incredibly difficult. You have to choose in this existence. I had the same feeling this morning when I...

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I knew, colleague Dedecker, that football comparisons are ⁇ bad, but I wanted to take the risk. And look, you have parched me.

Colleagues, what I wanted to say is that some consistency is important. What is consistency? It is essentially about credibility. We give a sign, not only through the mood but also through all sorts of other signals.

This morning I read in De Morgen an interview with the mayor of my city, Mr. Daniël Termont. You can say anything about it. I know it, he is not a member of Parliament, but he is also not nobody. He is the mayor of the second city of Flanders. I know that this is relatively in a world perspective, but yet, we live in this country and he is the mayor of the second city of Flanders. I quote him: “The GAS Act is a purely undemocratic system. They are both a judge and a party at the same time. This is bad for a rule of law. The GAS law creates arbitrariness and uncertainty. In addition, the citizen is dependent on the arbitrariness of the GAS officer in his or her municipality.”

Colleagues, either that is true, or you whisper him out of love for the truth openly back. You vote for or against, that is absolutely the case. Everyone should vote by conscience, but please be a little consistent. This will enhance our collective credibility.

Mr. Bracke, if you cite, you must also quote other passages. The same article also states that the mayor of Gent declares that the GAS are a necessary evil, because some things do not happen.

I would like to give you another quote. I was just surprised, because I read on the site of De Redactie: “Burgmeesters GAS-wet votes GAS-wet, but do not apply it.”

Therefore, I just listened to what Mr. Daniël Termont effectively explains. What does he say, Mr. Bracke? He points out that there is indeed a need to be able to mediate with young people. He also says that such mediation will now be possible with the new GAS law. He adds that in Gent no fines are applied to minors, but that there will be alternative sanctions.

So, Mr. Bracke, the title on the website of De Redactie – I’m not talking about De Morgen – is completely incorrect. The title should be: “The mayor of Gent applies the new law, namely mediation. We do not give a penalty, but we give an alternative penalty.”

Mr. Bracke, I do not want to get confused. Do you think that what Mr. Termont explains is all nonsense, or do you partially agree with him? You will approve the law.

Mr. Annemans, you can interrupt me at any time, but I will conclude my speech with that point. I will clarify my opinion during my decision.

First of all, however, I would like to express my gratitude to Mrs. Temmerman. After all, what she says is absolutely true.

I am, first of all, not responsible for wrong headings on www.deredactie.be.

Mrs. Temmerman, I have not quoted what you indicate. You can look at the report. I really didn’t quote it. However, the passage, frankly, just refers to my point. Mr. Termont says everything at the same time. Honestly, if something like this would happen to the N-VA, especially that one A says and the other A and a little more: the presses would be stopped. However, I note this completely aside.

Mrs. Temmerman, after all, it is a communication that really outputs all sides. Honestly, if you ask yourself how this happens, then I can imagine how it happens that communication goes out all the way. After all, it is very annoying for you to go against a certain current. I read tonight that the PvdA calls for not to pay the GAS fines. There must be civil disobedience.

Difficult, for a city that wants to be the most progressive city of Flanders, that is very difficult. By the way, Mrs. Temmerman, I just read you from that news site and I read you the piece from 15 u 45. I will now read you the piece of 15 u 55.

Ten minutes later the news site summarizes as follows: “Gent’s mayor Daniël Termont wants to impose GAS fines from the womb. This was stated by Luk Van der Kelen, political editor-in-chief of Het Laatste Nieuws, during the live broadcast of Villa Politica in Parliament. Van der Kelen makes that ruling after his newspaper wrote today that Termont is in favour of GAS fines for children aged ten, but Termont denied via De Ochtend on Radio 1 that he said that.”

In other words, he said it but not said it again. Ten years and not ten years. Finally, I ask only that there is some consistency in the interest of the credibility of politics.

Mr. Dedecker, I can only say that this is an exercise in Chevry, but then from the progressive side and I am absolutely not happy with that.

So I think you have to choose. It is one or the other. Either you are for and then you defend it, because that is a social choice, or you are against it.

Mr Annemans, I will answer your question later, because I have not forgotten them.

Although I am an absolute supporter of that system, and colleague Degroote has explained why, honestly, I have, à la limite, more respect for the position of the green colleagues, who are very clearly opposed from a certain conviction, than for such a position that hangs between the two, are for but also are against it. To put it plainly, “I get the wubbs from it.”

By the way, colleagues, Mr Annemans, I am now going to answer what you have noted. It is also a matter of credibility where we must keep one thing in mind – even if we assume that there is a majority in this House that supports this system – greatly well.

What we are now going to approve is actually the pragmatic solution for the failing Justice. I sat in my office this afternoon listening to Mr. Vanvelthoven’s presentation. I then wondered if we all realized what that man was there to say without any counterweight. He said – I wrote it immediately – “the rule of law, that is impunity.” It was in a discussion with the Greens. The discussion was about the court. The answer to the question of whether this would be left to the court was that the rule of law is impunity.

Mr. Bracke, what you are doing now is truly unheard of. It is not surprising that there are wrong titles above the pictures. If you take this sentence entirely out of the context of the whole reasoning of Mr. Vanvelthoven, then that is absolutely bad will for your sake. I am sorry.

Mrs. Temmerman, if I were to sit there, I’d stand up for my own epitheton now, but well.

Ladies and gentlemen, apart from this...

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I wrote that, Mrs. Temmerman. He said literally, “The rule of law, that is impunity.” Mrs. Temmerman, I gave the context. It was in a discussion with Green, where the question was whether one wanted everything to go to Justice, that Justice should also intervene for example small misdemeanors of young people. Then a supposed answer was given, namely that Green would say “yes.” Then Mr Vanvelthoven said: “The rule of law, that is impunity.”

Mr. Speaker, that is the problem of people who are not present in the hall, sleeping in their desk and occasionally noting a flard. That is the problem.

I have planned, Mr. Vanvelthoven, not to engage in such things. With your approval, I would like to step into the core of the matter. That is because you are actually right: the rule of law no longer works with us and Justice fails. I come here in this house, Mr. Vanvelthoven – I have counted it again – since 1988. That is long ago. In relation to you, Mr. De Croo: you were already there, but most others did not.

I have been there for 20 years!

I know that, Mr De Croo. Don’t mention the war!

That does not prevent – and that is the point I want to make, which at the same time is an answer – that we must approve this draft, even though one realizes, of course, that this system formulates a response to the deficiency of the rule of law. I agree, Mr. De Croo, I have already said it four times. Even with conviction.

I want to make the next point. I have been here since 1988 and in 1988 and in all the years that followed I have heard that justice would be reformed and that the problem would then be solved. That too is a matter of credibility. I will, Mr. De Croo, approve this draft with conviction, knowing that this is an instrument for the...

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Mr. Annemans, I have even responded publicly in a newspaper. If Mr. Termont says ten years, we say no, fourteen years. Point out of point. Not ten years. I really think they are kids. Reality is nuanced. I realize that the figures that Mr. Termont has given are also impressive. But I hope that a GAS fine is effectively the stick behind the door that will also prevent twelve-year-olds from misbehaving.

Mr. Bracke, the point that Termont is trying to make, namely that Justice is shifted to officials and that he does not like it in a rule of law, is right? Do you think he has a point there?

Mr. Termont may approve and think whatever he wants, the only thing I ask is not to say A and B at the same time, but simply to choose.

Now I do not know what you think.

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First of all, I would like to thank the Assembly and the members of the committee for the quality of the discussions conducted. We have worked deeply. The debate on the problem and the draft on administrative sanctions was detailed both in committee and in plenary session.

It seems to me that today’s debate has been edifying in that it has dropped one by one the masks, the caricatures, the slogans, the disinformation that – unfortunately! It was done by some. Several inconsistencies were shown during the discussions. The few criticisms of this project melted like snow in the sun as the debate advanced and the truth came to light.

I would then like to address our ecologist friends who have recently presented themselves as the new heroes of the oppressed youth of our country. In the light of the answers to the questions that have been asked, we have been able to see the very great gap that exists between speeches and acts. Thus, it is surprising, however, to have supported a bill much less well-written, much less clear, offering much less guarantees, not providing for mandatory mediation for young people and containing, as I said recently, a very large list of mixed offences passing from the judiciary to the local with a series of prosecutions, and to oppose, today, a project that gives guarantees and additional rights, which organizes preventive measures for young people and a mandatory mediation. Furthermore, it seems quite surprising to me that a green, ecologist party, which defends the environment, challenges administrative sanctions policies that, in large part, protect the environment and sanction a whole series of environmental and cleanliness offences. The various speeches I have heard have not always been a reflection of great coherence.

Moreover, it is surprising that, normally knowing the anti-security discourse, we are told that it would be better to penalize more young people and send them more often before the youth judge who is not always necessarily their great friend for facts that, ⁇ , can be better tracked and find a more appropriate response at the local level.

For a party that has always defended proximity, which constantly says that small is beautiful, it is surprising to have to hear such a point of intent with regard to communal autonomy, with regard to local democratic capabilities, with regard to a precisely tailor-made approach to issues that vary from common to common. I don’t think it’s consistent when we hear the different words.

Moreover, it is unique to have a very collective view of society but to refuse collective norms and especially sanctions when rules are not observed.

Finally, I find it quite dishonest to bring out the violins to us for a trial of intent on the administrative sanctions (those poor young people who are oppressed!), while in the three municipalities managed by the ecologists a package of measures, administrative sanctions all applied to minors and targeting the demonstrations, entertainment, festive elements and with restrictions that are not thin were taken.

I think that this debate, which has been followed with interest by young people, has shown that the truths are still more nuanced and that, when one goes to the campaign too early with too simplistic speeches, one sometimes finds himself after a parliamentary debate relatively weaker than the speech heard.

I would now like to address the young people, because they have, unfortunately, been misinformed on many points and I understand their concerns.

This bill has a single purpose: to promote a society characterized by respect. This means compliance with the rules and respect for others. I do not understand those who oppose this project, especially the youth organizations.

Would young people suddenly oppose the promotion of that fundamental value for the future of their society that is respect for others, their differences, their integrity, their dignity? I do not think so. Would they be against respecting common standards of living? I do not believe it. Would they be against respect for the environment, which is a sensitive element for them? I also do not think so. Are they against cleaning in the cities? I do not think so. Are they for acts of violence between people? I do not believe it. Are they for the flight? I do not think.

Let us not be mistaken. Today’s debate is also a debate about the society we want, and about what kind of social cohesion and social harmony we want in our cities and municipalities. Do we want a society where respect for the physical integrity of a person is not a priority? Is that what we want? Do we want to signal that it is not wrong to attack someone physically or verbally, that one can simply make sexist or racist accusations on the street without any response from the government? Do we want to signal that graffiti can be applied to the artworks of a city, that property can be destroyed and that there is no respect for the environment?

I do not believe it. More than 80% of House members supported this project, because we want to promote respect in our society. It is primarily about preventing rather than punishing. The goal is to refuse impunity, which is too often synonymous with the transition to a more serious crime. It is because the state must respond quickly and reasonably, in a proportionate way and following a pedagogical approach to the incivilities and mixed crimes that we support this project.

So we support the project for the youth and not against them, because it not only contains the values they defend elsewhere, it also fights what they accuse.

We support this project because young people are the first victims of this harassment, much more than the perpetrators: young women who have to undergo sexist accusations, young people who are addressed because they do not want to be oppressed, young people who receive racist comments.

Like others, I am surprised that youth organizations, by mobilizing themselves in this way, unintentionally stigmatize young people because they indirectly signal to society that they are the causers of disruption. But they are often – and sometimes in the majority – victims of rackets, minor violence and incivities committed by other young people, but also and above all by adults. This is something that we have not heard enough and that needs to be repeated.

Thus, the project is a delicate balance between personal freedom and the freedom of others.

I am one of those, like Lacordaire, who think that beyond certain limits, it is freedom that can oppress and it is the law that can free. I am also one of those who think that educating is also setting limits and not necessarily letting everything be done. In this regard, the project has additional guarantees for strengthening a pedagogical approach with regard to minors.

I also note that under the law of 8 April 1965 on the protection of youth, the prosecution of minors who have committed an offence defined as a crime and the redress of the damage caused by this fact, administrative sanctions may be imposed on minors. A stadium ban can be imposed from the age of fourteen. It is remarkable that some members are critical of the bill, but not of the provisions of the Act of 8 April 1965.

So we all agree to admit that a 14-year-old who commits uncivility in a stadium is punishable according to the law and this does not raise a revolution in the streets, but when it is committed outside the stadium, in the street, the whole society is in shock. Someday we will have to explain the logic of this reasoning.

As has already been said, I will not recall all the guarantees mentioned during our discussions. Nevertheless, I will emphasize that the obligation to inform the municipality that decides to sanction minors is an important point provided by the project.

The procedure of parental involvement is also very important. It is important to involve parents before offering compulsory mediation. The procedure can be terminated after a conversation with the parents, but that, of course, depends on the circumstances.

I find it ⁇ important to have planned this element to show how strongly we advocate a preventive and highly personalized approach in this matter.

I now come to the various provisions on compulsory mediation and community service.

These are basic provisions. Contrary to what has been said this morning on the radio by poorly informed animators, a young man will never have an administrative penalty with a fine; they will only be purely pedagogical approaches within either the mediation or the provision of activities of citizen interest. It should be repeated: this has not been sufficiently understood.

Likewise, we do not say enough that, whatever happens, the young man will always be able to appeal to the judge of youth. This is a fundamental guarantee. Overall, a recourse to administrative sanctions before a judicial authority will always be provided.

I recall that this draft supplements existing legislation and provides more rights and guarantees for offenders. In no case is this a revolution. Why then suddenly have to question a large amount of articles or practices that have existed for years that have never disturbed anyone, ⁇ not young people? The bill provides them more guarantees and protection.

I would also like to recall that this decision to lower the age to 14 was made in the government agreement, so long before the formation of the government, in discussions between the party presidents and the formator, before I became Minister of the Interior. This has been known for more than a year now and it corresponded to a request from several parties, of which suddenly the Youth seems to be currently moving. I think these youths should address the different parties internally.

As we said, this project is double-democratic. Not only is it the subject of deep debate and is supported massively at parliamentary level, but above all it will be the subject of decisions, debates, involvement of young people at the local level before a decision is made. Like the mr. Somers and others have expressed this, I trust in local democracy. I think this is one of the riches of our democratic system.

I also do not believe that the project affects the principle of the separation of powers. by Mr. Somers has explained it sufficiently and I will not paraphrase it with very similar examples showing how federal, regional or local officials already have major punishment capabilities. Furthermore, I just said how constantly there was a possible appeal at the judicial level.

No, the present draft does not open the road arbitrarily, by not defining the term “injury”. The fact that the concept of “injury” is not defined as such in the bill is because all parties made a very clear choice for municipal autonomy. The objective is that the municipalities that apply the municipal sanctions, in a democratic debate in the municipal council, decide what they mean by inconvenience. It is ⁇ not at the federal level to determine for each municipality what is disturbance, in particular what can be considered as a disturbance in a municipality. No distress in one municipality is a distress in another municipality.

No, the draft does not increase legal uncertainty. It is a clear draft, which clarifies the modalities of application of municipal administrative sanctions. Through the additional information and modalities, every citizen will be able to get acquainted with the application of administrative sanctions in his municipality.

No, the draft does not strengthen the implementation of litigation procedures outside the judicial institutions. However, it makes it possible to fight the disorder more effectively.

I said it and I wish it because I think it is necessary: an evaluation will be carried out after two years, or even annually. The benchmark should be kept transparent.

I agree with Mr. Mr. Somers and other members of the opposition, namely the need to impose transparency in the registers in order to be able to make a precise assessment of how the municipalities implement this project. From there, we will be able to initiate a nutritious debate at the time of the evaluation in Parliament, with an overview of the number of administrative fines, their application to young people, and how the preventive approach has worked.

It is true that, in an ideal world, with additional means – I assure you – it could belong to the justice to take over more cases.

I also agree with the opinion of Mr. Vanvelthoven: For some aspects, even in the case of a mixed infringement, the smartly thought out local approach, with an independent sanctioning official, with the rules of procedural guarantee that we impose, with the presence of lawyers, can correspond to the needs of speed, the needs of proximity and ⁇ also to a certain rapprochement that I think is essential.

To conclude, if some think that chaos comes from harmony, I am those who, as the great majority of this Chamber, estimate, as it suggests this Chinese proverb, that "l'harmonie ne naît jamais du chaos". (Applause of Applause)

Mrs. Minister, I do not want to extend the debate unnecessarily, but we have not heard from you what the ultimate goal of GAS is. Where do you want to go? I hear very different interpretations. Will the policy put Justice back on track, so that it will perform its task again, namely sanctioning and applying criminal laws? Do you support the assertion that the expansion of the GAS was necessary because the Justice Department failed and because, in anticipation of the restructuring of the Justice Department, it is temporarily necessary to address the problems through the GAS? Or do you choose to continue on that path and thus roll out the GAS further? I would love to hear an answer from you to these questions.

As I said, the GAS law has two objectives. First and foremost, the promotion of a society that respects the rules and for all citizens, and secondly, more resources against impunity.

Following this discussion, I would like to comment on two or three points.

First of all, I think that the youth associations, the defenders of the rights of these young people are not stupid, that they read the texts, analyzed them, that they made their own opinions, that you and we questioned and that they wanted to hear us and talk to us. Also, to say "you have been misinformed, we are exploiting your naivety or your ignorance of the texts", is to show contempt for them. Furthermore, it does not inspire me confidence in how you will take into account the opinions collected later.

Secondly, my colleagues in the committee said that there was no assessment of the old law. However, it is changed by lowering the age of young people.

The Minister gave us a few lists of municipalities that apply rules, sanctions, according to regulations adopted by them. These are not assessments. What I would like, Madam the Minister, is to have statistics on the means used with the positive or negative effects, which justify a change of the law. You did not bring it!

And if we ask for a framework and that this level of power take action, it is well to avoid that at certain times, in municipalities directly and daily confronted with these situations, we witness deviations, regardless of the political colour of those who are in power.

This is where the federal level has the obligation to ensure that the rights of every citizen are respected equally throughout the territory. However, your bill does not comply with those measures.

Finally, I would like to point out from your remarks that, obviously, the justice will continue to lack the resources. This is also affirmed flagrantly.

Mr. Speaker, I was quite surprised to hear in the mouth of a minister that “the judge of youth is not always a friend of the youth.” For me, the judge of the youth is here just to defend the interest...

The [...]

Mr. Minister, we are in the replicas. Otherwise, this debate will be endless.

This phrase is a breaking of confidence. If the judges are not there to defend society as a whole as well as young people, we have a real problem. This is the problem that needs to be addressed. This is not at all what we did today, since we invented new “small judges” but without the guarantees of the judge. So I am quite worried.

You said “small is beautiful.” We will be able to make laws on measure. Sorry, but in the Netherlands, where there is a list from which municipalities can draw, they can also tailor-made laws. On the other hand, there are no blurred or blurred measures. How will the young and the younger know that in such a community one can spit, in such another step, in that one one cannot do this? (Brouhaha on various banks)

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to ask you for a little quiet. Ms. Gilliam has the floor.

Have you not been taught that you should let others speak?

If we want the rules to be followed, they must be known. To do this, they should be relatively uniform. Small is beautiful, but it will be ⁇ complex for people to know from one street to another what to do.

You said, in a number of municipalities, here are the regulations. But for the Green Mayors you referred to and contacted, they also told us...

The [...]

I invite Ms. Genot to continue her speech. He has three minutes left.

If De Permentier wants to speak, she can study a text in a committee and then intervene!

You say anything! What is your position of peace and love?

You have no word! (Brouhaha on various banks)

I will finally believe the parable of the workers of the last hour!

You are worse than kids. Sanctions will need to be imposed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to conclude your speech.

I do not know if there is a need to provide for SACs for insults. In any case, this is flying down.

It has been said very clearly that educating is setting limits. But setting limits does not mean imposing fines.

Mr. Minister, you stated that we lied to the young people by saying that no fines were planned for them. However, there are fines for parents of young people who commit acts of innocence. So you are the ones who lie to them, claiming that no penalty is planned!

I understand that Ms. Fonck says that the fines are not really a problem for her. But we know who are the young people who will be affected by these measures. It is young people whose parents often have a small budget that are at risk of being affected by the latter. Therefore, the increase in the amount of fines is ⁇ inappropriate.

I agree with you when you say you need to send signals. But the main signal must be given by the justice and the body that makes it. Now, today, the signal sent is that one cannot trust justice and that, by doing so, one is redirected to the communes.