Proposition 53K3256

Projet de loi portant assentiment à l'Accord, conclu par échange de notes verbales datées du 16 octobre 2013 et du 7 novembre 2013, portant prolongation de la Convention entre le Royaume de Belgique et le Royaume des Pays-Bas sur la mise à disposition d'un établissement pénitentiaire aux Pays-Bas en vue de l'exécution de peines privatives de liberté infligées en vertu de condamnations belges, faite à Tilburg (Pays-Bas) le 31 octobre 2009.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Dec. 16, 2013

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Netherlands prisoner international agreement penal institution

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo

Party dissidents ¶

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

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 19, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the services of the Committee on Foreign Relations for preparing the report very quickly and for ensuring that the report of the meeting, which took place yesterday, is now on the banks.

For the rest, I refer to the written report.

The confirmation of this agreement is urgently on our banks. This is, of course, not more than just because the current agreement expires on 31 December. The situation is therefore very urgent.

It is also urgent due to the figures as they are presented today. I refer to the figures of the Council of Europe: the number of cells in Belgium is 9 255, the number of detainees 11 732, almost 12 000 and it continues to rise. That means 127 detainees for 100 seats. We have no more prisoners than the rest of Europe. On the contrary, we are a healthy middle mother. We simply have too few places, which are also in very poor condition. Therefore, Tilburg rental is no more than necessary.

I regret that you have waited so long for the renewal of the agreement. I do not fully understand why you did this – we have also talked about it in the committee – and why she should be present here today with the highest urgency.

You will undoubtedly argue that you have waited for the agreement of your colleagues, the budget and the opinion of the State Council. Mrs. Minister, I think these are drug reasons, because the Council of Ministers had already decided on this on 20 July following the insistence of the Inspectorate of Finance. You knew this for a long time. Then wait until the trap to renew the contract and risk that a six hundred detainees suddenly had to return to Belgium where there was no place for it, I think that play with fire. We already have a shortage of space.

Anyway, the agreement is there and we will definitely approve it. It is a tool. So we will be able to retain six hundred seats.

You know, however, that we still lack 2,000 seats. It may be the right time to ask you to give another statement in the Justice Committee on the master plan. You have done this on a regular basis in the past, but it has been some time ago now. Therefore, I would like to address this request to you.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, during the quick discussion we had yesterday in the committee, after a most expeditious call, we did not fail to make you notice that the deadlines you had imposed on us had complicated our work. I will not extend myself long on this subject. I just wanted to draw the attention of my colleagues on two points.

First, as regards the procedure and the tacit extension of the convention that is proposed by the Minister, the Minister provides in the exhibition reasons that if the Chamber does not react, it will be deemed to have accepted the extension of the convention. Not only does this extension proposal come very late but the text provides that even if the committee had not considered it, even if it was not voted today, the convention would come into force. In this regard, the State Council has reacted very firmly because this provision is contrary to international standards that prohibit the application of coercive and binding measures with a retroactive effect. The warning of the State Council is important and must be taken into account.

Secondly, in this convention, the issue of aid to prisoners is not mentioned anywhere. However, this point is essential.

Today, detainees who are accommodated in Tilburg prison do not enjoy the same rights as other detainees in Belgian territory. There is a problem of equal treatment and equality.

The Flemish Community, of which the Tilburg prison depends, does not fulfill or assumes its function of providing external assistance to detainees in the Tilburg prison. This means that Belgium’s largest penitentiary prison does not offer the necessary services that could allow better reintegration of detainees once their sentence has been executed.

I do not predict the effects that this can have on prisoners than to find themselves, like this, stuck in a cell where they do not see the external services. I was answered during the discussion in the commission that the psychosocial services of the prison provided assistance and guidance.

I would just like to remind that in the Dupont Act, the distinction is well made between the psychosocial service provided by the internal service of the prison and the services that the Communities are supposed to provide. These are deontologically two distinct functions, and one cannot ask the same service to perform them.

For example, when a person is in a procedure for conditional release, they are followed by the prison psychosocial service that performs an expert mission. This same person, when preparing his reinsertion, his exit, has the right to request to be followed by an external service that will help him to better decode the situation in which he is in, as well as to set up all steps to exit in the best conditions. These are two completely distinct missions and we must make sure that they remain, as stipulated in the Dupont Act.

That is why our group, which is not already very favorable to the extension of this convention, will not be able to vote on this extension. Initially, I had planned to submit an amendment, but I learned later that a special majority was needed. In any case, I will ask the minister to be attentive to the lack of support that prisoners in Tilburg prison suffer. It is not permissible for this situation to continue. In any case, I intend to submit a bill to amend this. I thank you.

At the end of the trip, you will eventually have only been able to exercise your mandate for two and a half years. I will not charge you with all the sins of Israel. However, it is remarkable that the Netherlands under the patronage of the municipality of Maastricht has in the meantime made the offer to park prisoners there too, if I can say so. It is a kind of outsourcing offer due to the Dutch government.

This results immediately in my next conclusion, namely the paradox that own prisoners are stationed in the Netherlands and that many prisoners, coming from other countries, must serve their sentences here in our prisons, with the electronic surveillance extended to extend so that they can serve their sentences in their own living room on their own sofa.

I would like to draw another conclusion on this, Mrs. Minister. This is also an actual problem. When will you rent prisons in Syria? There can therefore be placed many who come from here, new Belgians in particular.

In short, I want to take this policy on the ground because everything is on its head in this country, including the prison system.

Mr. Speaker, as I explained in detail in the committee, it is only today that we came to Parliament with this treaty that we first had to have the necessary budgetary resources. This was decided in the October budget.

Immediately thereafter, the diplomatic process with the Netherlands began, which ended with the signing on 7 November by our Minister of Foreign Affairs. We then requested the opinion of the State Council, which we only received on Monday. As all colleagues know, a draft must be subject to the opinion of the Council of State before it can be submitted to Parliament.

I would also like to inform my colleagues that compared to 12 December 2012, on 12 December 2013, the overpopulation in our prisons had decreased by 5%. Due to the opening of the prisons in Beveren and Leuze and the FPC in Ghent, that decline will be even greater in 2014.

As I also stated in the committee, the treatment of detainees in Tilburg is governed by Belgian law: they are subject to the same provisional release conditions as Belgian detainees. The process is also reviewed every year. With this extension for Tilburg, we mainly continue to work on obtaining a correct execution of sentences, as well as on human conditions in prison. If there are sometimes comments about the prison in Tilburg, there is at least no overcrowding there and that is a huge plus for the people who stay there. As I said, overpopulation decreased by 5 percent last year.

I hope you understand well what you say. You knock yourself on the chest because the overpopulation has dropped by 5%. We and the people who are out of prison because they have not been punished will not be satisfied until the prison population has dropped by at least 25% because the criminal policy will finally bear fruit, which it now does not do at all. The Netherlands has achieved that result and that is precisely why you should rent cells in the Netherlands today.