Proposition 53K3274

Projet de loi modifiant les articles 217, 223, 224 et 231 du Code judiciaire.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Jan. 8, 2014

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

suspension of sentence criminal procedure criminal law alternative sentence

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Voted to reject

VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo N-VA LDD

Party dissidents ¶

• Bernard Clerfayt (MR) abstained from voting.
• Alexandra Colen (VB) abstained from voting.
• Peter Luykx (CD&V) abstained from voting.
• Olivier Maingain (MR) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 13, 2014 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I would like to refer to my written report.

The first speaker is Ms. De Wit.

There is no Minister.

Minister Turtelboom concludes her response to the Senate. You will have to start with two Deputy Prime Ministers and a Minister. A third of the government is present.

Mr. Brotcorne, I had expected a detailed report, but I would like to thank you very much for your excellent written report.

This government has a certain, not insignificant, intention inscribed in its government agreement. She wanted to diversify, individualize and expand the penalty range. That is good. That is a justified desire.

You know or don’t know that our criminal procedure law already has different figures and modalities, one of which is probation. I refer to the law of 1964, which is 50 years old this year. This year, the law is against Abraham.

Probating involves imposing no or a partial prison sentence, provided that a number of probating conditions are met, such as following a therapy, a payment plan, training, and so on. Their objectives are, of course, the promotion of social integration and a reduction of recurrence. This is, of course, a view that we all pursue.

I have already said that this law of 1964 is fifty years old, and it is therefore to be amended in the sense that it needs urgently to be modernized.

The current aspirations of this government – individualization, diversification, punishment by measure, reclassification – are right. These demands, however, can be addressed through an adaptation of the Act of 1964, simply by a modernization of the existing system. Furthermore, the majority of the magistrates and the courts were requesting the party to address this instrument.

This majority and this minister did not. You have not addressed the law of 1964, Mrs. Minister. What have you done? With this law you enter the probation as an autonomous punishment, thus not linked to a prison sentence or a probation period. Simply following therapy or training is the punishment in itself. Therefore, there are no conditions to avoid a certain prison sentence.

This is a new tool, a new method, a new procedure. It will be the fact judge who will decide whether to impose an autonomous probation.

That fact judge will also determine the duration, but not its concrete fulfillment — and that is the interesting thing about it. The judge, who alone has the competence to impose a penalty, will no longer be competent for the concrete fulfillment as this aspect is left to the probation committee. That is to say that the punishment by this law is undoubtedly delegated to a probation committee. This is reasonably extensive.

I see that you would like to consult, Mrs. Minister, but you did not do that in this file, however not with the necessary actors. You have not consulted with magistrates and other actors. You have not requested advice from the High Council for Justice, which, however, is our advisory body. At first, you didn’t even want to give him the design texts. Nor do we know what our judicial assistants, who have to process and prepare everything, think of it. This means an extra workload for these people. In addition, this government will save on the judiciary houses this year.

We asked for hearings in the committee, but we did not receive them. We asked for written advice, in order to gain time, because it had to go quickly. They did not come either.

So a new system has quickly been introduced, colleagues, to remedy the shortcomings of an old system, while the old system remains unchanged. There are now two tracks next to each other where two trains depart at the same time. We will see which one arrives first and which one reaches the intended station best.

I am a simple lawyer, not an economist. Driving on two tracks does not seem to be the best or most efficient and economical solution. You are, of course, consistent, because also with the electronic surveillance you have walked those two tracks. It will become a giant trace network within our criminal procedure law. For the trial you now also have two tracks, with a separate procedure and separate conditions, to eventually ⁇ the same, at least that is what we hope.

Mrs. Minister, I cannot emphasize enough that your two-track policy will lead to legal uncertainty. It will lead to inconsistencies on the level of punishment and punishment execution. It will be difficult for our houses of justice, because they will find people who will fall under the old or new system, with different procedures and different rules. It is just an announcement of all sorts of mistakes. Do I hear the word “procedural errors” falling there?

Mr. Landuyt, you had a solution, but we already know that it does not work.

All of this is due to this double-track policy. It will lead to nefaste results. Think, for example, of a recidivist, someone who has already served a prison sentence of more than a year; that person can, in application of the old, fifty-year-old law, no longer receive a probation suspension, but only an effective punishment. After all, that person falls in repetition and already has a palmares. Well, to that same recidivist, by the new law and the autonomous probation, a therapy or training may be given as a punishment. That person can get a much lighter punishment via this track. In this way, one does not ⁇ the goal that one wants to ⁇ .

Mrs. Minister, I know that we differ in terms of opinions and that will, in my opinion, remain the same, but in my opinion it would have been better if you had entered the probation, even with an autonomous character, in the old law of 1964. One track, one destination, one station. It would also have been much more coherent and much clearer.

Nothing of all that though. You continue with your separate procedure. Why invent procedures when there is already legislation that may be used? There is such a thing as a work penalty. And what do they do? One takes over the procedure of the labour punishment entirely and through copy/paste one tries to apply that procedure, also for the autonomous probation. This is extremely problematic, Mrs. Minister, because the probation and the work penalty are fundamentally different. This requires a different approach, not copy/paste.

This has also been demonstrated during the committee debates. You have always said that this is stated in the texts of the work penalty and that adjustments need to be made. However, this was not possible with a simple copy/paste. I have also tried several times to explain this to you, but it has not brought soden to the dive. The result is that we have been embarked on the separate procedure of the autonomous probation. It is a complex and untransparent system, colleagues, which is incoherent and more expensive. However, I think that is not the intention.

Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize that this is a system that completely excludes the jurisdiction of the judge of facts, namely the award of the penalty. This power is delegated to the test committee. We need to know exactly what this means, colleagues.

The judge will now determine the duration of a trial, but not the concrete fulfillment. This means that the judge does not know exactly what punishment he will impose. How can a judge impose a penalty in this way?

He will not know it, because it will be completed by that committee. He knows the direction, but he does not know what concretely he is deciding, let alone that he can correctly inform the offender at the hearing, which is nevertheless his competence.

The perpetrator does not know exactly what he is agreeing to at the moment. And very importantly, the victim’s interests may not be taken into account at the hearing, which can sometimes be expressed in the probationary conditions imposed on the offender. After all, it is not the judge who imposes the conditions, but the committee, and there the victim is not present. I fear we have a few stops too far to get to the station.

Mrs. Minister, we have debated the trial committee for a very long time and I have asked you a lot of questions about it that could not always be answered. There is still a gap. The trial committee may adjust or extend the conditions, but also reduce or even abolish them. The judge decides what the sentence is, but the committee may reduce or abolish it.

What fact judge will use that modality, if he knows someone else will be at the wheel? He may ride or cut tickets like a train driver, but he may not drive the train. That is not the intention.

With the proposed procedure and procedure, which is inserted into the labor criminal procedure, he is deprived of the strike force. It was not a good idea to maintain the procedure in this way.

Do not misunderstand me. Autonomous trial is a good idea, a wider penalty range is a good idea, differentiation is good, but you put it in the wrong vehicle and the wrong packaging. You will see that the problems with the implementation in practice will be legio.

I fear that soon there will be a law of coordination – a law we can no longer call it a law of repair. I have no doubt, and that while the majority of the magistrates and the courts asked only for the good law of 1964, the law that Abraham saw to be modernized and adapted to the needs of today, instead of laying a complex trail on it, which just can dispel Justice.

Mrs. Minister, I am going around.

The introduction of a new penalty must be done in a thoughtful manner. You need to ensure that the whole system remains coherent. This must be ensured, which is not the case now. We now have an unnecessarily complicated, complex system. Coherence is sought.

You might have better asked for advice or consultation, which is not a shame. The people in question are appointed for this purpose. They also ask for it. That is an added value.

Although it may be done with the very best intentions, which I do not even doubt, our criminal justice system, through such interventions and such a two-track policy, becomes a rubbish and an old lady leaf, in which soon no cat – and therefore no judge – finds her boy back. Thus, we are getting further and further away from an efficient and fast justice, which everyone here in the hemisphere wants.

Ladies and gentlemen, the goal is good. The idea is fine. However, the means is wrong. It is totally wrong. Therefore, our group will abstain.

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 of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker of the Speaker. This project will complement our legal arsenal and thus allow for the diversification of the range of penalties. We will have in our arsenal the sentence of imprisonment with suspension, simple and probatory, the sentence of imprisonment with suspension, simple and probatory, electronic surveillance, the sentence of labor and the sentence of autonomous probation.

With the exception of the most serious facts, probation as an autonomous punishment allows the judge to pronounce a sentence, which by itself fulfils the objectives of the punitive system and is in conformity with the criminal knowledge.

This sanction enables, in fact, to reaffirm the social order, to give meaning to the punishment, to adapt the punishment according to the circumstances and psychosocial problems at the origin of the criminal behavior and according to the profile of the offender.

This sanction also makes it possible to specifically aim at the reintegration or rehabilitation of the convicted person into society. It holds the author responsible. Finally, it provides a response to the victim and society as a whole in the face of the damage suffered.

You all know, prison is necessary, but only when it is necessary to protect society and when very serious offences have been committed. Incarceration and other penalties may prove inappropriate, especially in cases of drug addiction, mismanagement of aggression or driving, and I do. Through this, the convict will have to prove that he is apt to reintegrate into our society.

The Consensus Conference on the Prevention of Recurrence, which is chaired by Belgian Judge Françoise Tulkens, demonstrated that, for minor offences, recurrences were lower after a probation than after a prison. Therefore, the importance of such a sanction is evident.

Following discussions in a committee on whether the text infringed the principle of predictability of the sentence, the principle of legality in the face of fears that the judge would lose his power of decision in favor of the assistants of the judiciary, an amendment strengthened the text to require the judge, even if I think the basic text was already in this direction, to give indications on the concrete content of the sentence.

There is, therefore, no delegation of the power to judge contrary to what Mrs. De Wit has just explained to you. I think it is the judge who determines the sentence.

The question that was raised within the committee was whether the judge should give more or less precise indications on the probation penalty. The discussions in the committee were carried out. In particular, they pointed to the following example. If a person is experiencing an aggression problem and needs to undergo an aggression management training, is it in everyone’s interest that the magistrate determine, in an excessively precise manner, the institution that should provide this training? Some members of the committee expressed concerns. Can the body targeted by the judge provide the training? Shouldn’t it be replaced? Will it not be overwhelmed?

Therefore, the established system has absolutely not deprived the judge of his power to judge. It is the judge who sets the sentence. Simply put, the magistrate will give indications on the concrete content of the autonomous probation penalty.

We talked about the victims. Of course, we are taking this into account. It is stipulated in the text that the judge may take their interests into account.

It is also stipulated that the defendant must agree to the probationary sentence and its content.

The system also provides for an alternative penalty in case of non-compliance. If the autonomous probation, accessory punishment, imprisonment or fine punishment is not respected, it shall be applicable to the extent that what has not been executed at the level of the autonomous probation punishment.

I am convinced that with this text we respond to the concerns of the sector regarding the coexistence of the current probation system and probation as an autonomous punishment. An evaluation will likely need to take place in the medium term to verify whether this coexistence is sustainable or needs to be reviewed.

In order for this system to constitute an alternative punishment that makes sense, reinserts and limits recurrence, it must be properly funded.

Therefore, it will be necessary to take into account the competences conferred on judicial assistants and probation committees in order to ensure the proper financing of these services and to ensure that the personnel necessary for the performance of these new tasks are employed.

I will finish by giving you another much more technical explanation but which, in my opinion, will be met by the lawyers and lawyers present here. You should know that in some cases people absolutely do not have the possibility to see a sentence of imprisonment registered on their criminal records. If that were the case, the penalty would be double. These people would have a criminal record and of course the penalty but a double penalty would follow, that is, the convicted person would lose his job. Under certain circumstances, this can happen.

In this case, the plaintiff does not have much choice. What are the penalties that do not give rise to a criminal record in our legal arsenal? First is the punishment. This is not necessarily suitable for those who already have a job.

Another sentence for which there is no entry in the criminal record is the prison sentence I have just cited, only when it is accompanied by a suspension of the sentence. So far no worries. The only problem is that, in order to benefit from this prison sentence with suspension of sentence, the accused must acknowledge the facts. The defendant has no choice, so that, in some cases, the advocate, in an incidental manner, but above all the defendant, as the principal interested party, may be quite stuck and have to acknowledge the facts that he would normally want to challenge, simply because he has no choice. He is obliged to acknowledge the facts, simply because he cannot afford to have a criminal record.

Therefore, the bill that is currently being presented to you brings a real plus to our legal arsenal. That is certain! You will no longer have this completely uncomfortable situation at the level of the accused who can perfectly, quite comfortably, say: I do not acknowledge the facts but I ask for a probation penalty that I accept. There would no longer be this completely uncomfortable situation forcing the accused to acknowledge the facts. I have only talked about the criminal aspect, but this acknowledgment of facts can have extremely significant implications at the civil level. This is the worst and that is what we need to see.

For all the considerations I have already brought to you and for the last example I have just given you, my group will fully support this text.

CD&V is a strong supporter of a differentiated criminal arsenal. To the extent that we obtain the certainty or increase the chances that people will be reintegrated after committing a crime that is eligible, we are effectively in favour of this. There were extensive discussions about this law and the possibility of providing for an evaluation of the existing system in advance. There are also questions about the two systems that we allow to exist side by side. In the next legislature, we must seriously evaluate this and, if necessary, remedy it.

We were also concerned about the houses of justice, which will be given a lot of additional tasks, including by the law that is being voted here today. We know that within a few months these contracts will be transferred to the courts at Community level. The Minister has assured us that they will have the resources and capacity to do so. We hope this is the case, but it will ⁇ be followed by the Communities as well.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, this project is part of the Government’s will displayed throughout this legislature, to diversify as much as possible the penalties that can be applied in case of infringement. This proceeds from the principle that a wider range of penalties available to the judge allows him to pronounce the most appropriate punishment in the face of the offence, but also in the face of the individual who will perform it. There will be the most relevant personalization to mark the social inadequacy of the facts and their reproach, but also to allow for the most successful possible reintegration and thus avoid a possible recurrence.

The Ministry declares its adherence to these principles. We voted for electronic surveillance as an autonomous punishment, we vote today for the probation penalty. From now on, the judge will be able to condemn as the main penalty an autonomous probation penalty when a fact is likely to result in a police penalty or a correctional penalty. Certain facts are excluded, namely the taking of hostages, rape, exploitation of evil or prostitution committed on or with minors, as well as murders in various forms.

It is now necessary that the budgetary and human resources follow in order for this law to become effective and effective. One problem raised in the commission is that this new sentence will exist in parallel with the law of June 29, 1964, my colleagues have already talked about it. Some believe that this could lead to confusion, as the two probations do not meet the same criteria. The minister’s decision to provide for an assessment of the new law and its impact on the 1964 law can reassure both. If a problem arises, there will be solutions to it, we will be attentive to it.

Furthermore, I think the next legislature will have to consider a revision of the Criminal Code in general. Indeed, when one knows the date of writing of the Criminal Code, when one sees the many laws that have come to add to it for many years, new penalties, new offences, fragmentation of penalties, it may be a little difficult to find it. The resolution signed by my group a few months ago aiming at a revision of the Criminal Code makes all sense. It will require hard work and energy, it will require courage but it seems to me to be a ⁇ useful work.

Mr. Goffin, I thank you for the concisity of your speech.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, Mrs. Minister, the project we are studying appears to be a good initiative that aims at individualizing the measures for those who no longer have the right to the suspension or the suspension of a speech.

Should we look forward to such a project that seems to come out of the exclusion logic and open a small window to the logic of integration?

It is in good faith that we have participated in the examination of the text presented by the government, without any intention of hindering its achievement. We obtained the opinions of the State Council and the Supreme Council of Justice in order to enrich its content and to try to get out of the systematic majority-opposition confrontation. The goal is indeed the individualization of measures and penalties in order to bring a more intelligent social response, aimed at guaranteeing the safety of society while bet on the rehabilitation of individuals, a project that is dear to us.

We requested the hearing of the field actors (magistrates, court houses, lawyers), because the opinions of the State Council and the Supreme Council of Justice carried criticism on the substance of the project and we wanted to not allow anything. In addition, the opinions of both courts recommended these hearings.

We even asked to collect written opinions, with the same underlying objective, in case we were suspected of wanting to slow down the work.

Dear colleagues, this is a double “no” that we have received as a response and we regret it. Once again, we have a text that is poorly folded in its form and, above all, a text that follows its same logic. In fact, in the background, this text will raise even more problems than it will solve. The solution will quickly become a new problem.

Fortunately, and always in good faith, we requested a second reading of the proposed text. It must be noted that the work of the services has clearly demonstrated that the copy-paste that originated the writing of this project contained many gaps and confusions.

Here is the introduction. In principle, the project introduces probation as an autonomous punishment in order to diversify the range of penalties. This idea was already included in the final report of the Holsters Commission. Concretely, this means that for a crime, except for a moral offence or a contravention, the criminal judge can pronounce an autonomous probation penalty of which he sets the duration, from six months to two years, regardless of the person’s legal background.

The judge may give indications as to the nature of this probation, but not fix the modalities. These modalities (formation, treatment ...) are determined in a second time by the probation commission of the place of residence of the convicted person. We remain somewhat in the same logic: the judge may have a more or less precise idea, but he will not know very well what it is about, or how things will go.

I talked about the opinions of the State Council and the Supreme Council of Justice. The Council of State considers that the probation conditions as they currently exist are not qualified as punishments but rather as methods of treatment, the primary purpose being to provide assistance. If we really want to stay in a perspective of aid, this is what the State Council says first.

The State Council questions the coherence of the coexistence of two systems, the same measure can hardly sometimes constitute a punishment, sometimes not. Thus, after the introduction of the labour penalty as an autonomous penalty in 2002, it was considered that it was no longer possible to assort the suspension or suspension of the penalty from a probation condition consisting of a work of general interest. Therefore, the State Council said, it would be better to talk about a sui generis measure rather than an autonomous punishment, and it would therefore be more logical that the court of enforcement of penalties be associated with its execution.

According to the State Council, the qualification of the probationary measure as a punishment may also raise the question of compliance with the principle of legality in criminal matters. A punishment must be predictable and formulated in terms that allow each person to know, at the moment he adopts a punishable behavior, the measure incurred.

Nothing is specified as to the duration of the sentences (prison or substitute fines). There is no mechanism to guarantee a certain proportionality between probation or substitution punishment. The same applies to the arrangements according to which, in case of partial non-execution, the part of the probation penalty already executed must be taken into account.

Furthermore, the Supreme Council of Justice, whose opinions are increasingly denied, emphasizes two points.

The first concerns what it calls illegitimate delegation of the fixing of the sentence. The Council specifies that a strict distinction must be ⁇ ined between the imposition of a sentence – which is the role of the repressive judge – and the execution of the sentence which falls within the competence of the sentencing judge.

The draft under consideration provides that the probation penalty will allow the repressive judge to further individualize the penalties, but it also provides that the judge will subcontract the fixation of the penalty and that it will be the judicial assistants who will specify the conditions. According to the Supreme Council of Justice, it is an illegitimate delegation of the fixing of the sentence, the initial conditions must be fixed by the judge, following a contradictory debate, during the hearing in the presence of the judge and the lawyers of the different parties.

In addition, there is the issue of costs. All the speakers spoke about it. The monitoring and management of this new sentence will cause more administrative work, which will result in increased costs. Has this opinion been taken into account in the preparation of the budget? Will it be taken into account? The future will tell us! Unfortunately, so far nothing has been clarified on this issue. Only promises were made. Now, we know what the promises made on the eve of the election become!

I am thus coming to the second point raised by the Supreme Council of Justice, which relates to complexity and lack of consistency. The desire to diversify punishments is not a reason to introduce any new autonomous punishments, without consultation of magistrates and other actors and without ensuring the coherence of the whole system.

In conclusion, the Higher Council of Justice believes that the same objectives could be achieved by reforming the current probation law, which would cost much less. Furthermore, it should be noted that the majority of magistrates and court houses are demanding an adaptation of this law in order to allow a suspension or probatory suspension, regardless of the accused’s judicial past. Currently, suspension or suspension is no longer possible if the person has already been sentenced to a prison sentence of more than twelve months.

Our MR colleague has just said that it would be time to stop coveting and creating punishments that go hue and dia. The time has come to sit around the table all the actors in order to review and reform the Criminal Code dating from the nineteenth century and which, today, appears quite inappropriate. The scale of penalties provided by this Code and in which this new penalty is inserted is no longer suitable for our society. Thus, theft is punished more severely than blows and injuries.

These measures, bracelet or probation punishments, are likely to have exactly the same effect as the labour punishment, i.e. to a large extent to substitute for more gracious punishments or measures (classification without follow-up, mediation, suspension) but not for prison sentences. Remember that the electronic bracelet, as voted a few weeks ago, seems to exist only for offenses punishable less than a year. “Looks like,” because as I pointed out at the time of the vote, the text is not clear on this subject.

The argument put forward by the authors of the project, according to which probation must move away from suspension and suspension, which would allow the judge to provide for more individualization, does not stand the way. Indeed, within the framework of a suspension or probatory suspension, the judge can impose all the conditions he wants, except for the work of general interest since it has become an autonomous penalty, and therefore further diversify the penalty with the prohibition to attend drinks and meetings, to have contacts with the victims, to attend training, to find a home, in short, to impose several conditions at the same time, which will no longer be the case when we have voted the project that is submitted to us.

Then, the subsidiary sentence of imprisonment pronounced within the framework of the autonomous probation penalty risks to be higher than the sentence of imprisonment with suspension that would have been pronounced, the judge estimating by pronouncing this type of penalty that he makes a greater gift than if he pronounced the suspension, which is seen for labour penalties today.

The implementation of the two systems in parallel will result in the impossibility of finding it for both lawyers and magistrates as well as for the social workers of the houses of justice and, a fortiori, the justiciable; I am not the first to say this. This is a central point and a fundamental criticism of the usefulness of this text.

We are talking about an adequate response for those who no longer have the right to a suspension, for whom only a sentence of imprisonment or work is possible. However, on the one hand, transaction and mediation remain possible and, on the other hand, a more adequate and less costly response, as the Supreme Council of Justice points out, would have been to remove the conditions linked to the background.

As the State Council has pointed out, in the current system, a judge can review the situation of the convicted person if he does not comply with the conditions for his suspension. Therefore, there is more guarantee than when the probation committee will have to decide. For example, if a judge revokes the default suspension, an objection can be made, which is not the case for a decision of the probation committee.

Today, we have submitted two new amendments. The first is an amendment for more coherence. It is tradition to provide for time limits of at least 15 days for appeals, whereas the text provides for time limits of 5 to 10 days. Rather, the second is intended to allow an appeal in the event of non-execution of the modality of the sentence imposed. The new text stipulates that when the probationary committee notifies the judge that the modality of the sentence has not been executed, the judge may directly apply the subsidiary sentences without the possibility for the justifiable to appeal, while this possibility exists in the current system.

There is therefore a huge confusion between the sense of punishment and the mode of reintegration.

Finally, I would like to address the issue of funding and consultation with the Communities. They will be responsible for the implementation of the new law. Do they have the means? Were they concerted? In addition, the houses of justice will be communityized without any guarantee of funding. At the moment, nothing is specified.

In conclusion, Madame the Minister, dear colleagues, if the pursued goal of the diversification of penalties is obviously praised – and this is what we have always asked for – the method used is disastrous because, not only does it not ⁇ the aim pursued but the project will inevitably cause more confusion and problems than anything else.

A reform of the current probation system, i.e. the 1964 law, is desirable and desirable, but transforming probation into autonomous punishment is not necessarily the most relevant track. This is why, during the work of our committee, we submitted a comprehensive amendment in order to respond to the request of both the Supreme Council of Justice and field actors; this amendment removes the question of backgrounds. It would have been better to work on a much simpler, lighter, fast, consistent and practicable text for all, rather than having a text in which no one will find himself.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mrs. Minister, we are not against the diversification of the criminal arsenal, let that be clear. We are in favor of a measure of punishment for every convicted person. We are therefore not opposed to probation as an autonomous punishment. Indeed, a judge must be able to order a convicted person to comply with certain conditions so that he is not immediately sent to prison. If the convicted person complies with these conditions, he may remain out of prison.

Until today, this system, according to the 1964 law, only existed for cases where no definitive conviction had yet been given. Now one wants to make it an autonomous punishment and also someone who is convicted can then fall under the system of probation.

That in itself is a noble goal. Unfortunately, the additional reason why this is approved today is the lack of prison capacity. There are too few cells. Therefore, a lot of lap tools must be invented to ensure that the punishments are executed in some way.

I do not blame you personally, Mrs. Minister. You always shy away from the fact that your term of office has hardly lasted more than half of a normal term of office. It is therefore understandable. Therefore, you cannot be offended by the fact that in that short term of everything you are trying to make the punishments executed in some way. However, you should also look further. You should see what risks this scheme entails. It could be an excuse for future governments and future ministers of justice to assert that there are sufficient penalties and that there is no need for more prison capacity.

You are actually apologizing to your successors, though I hope they will never use it. I have been in charge of the Ministry of Justice for 15 years. Those who used such excuses are more numerous than those who renounced such excuses and who wanted to strictly uphold the punishment order. You are now apologizing to those after you, who will say that no more prison capacity is needed.

I hear that Tilburg can be abolished as soon as the new government enters office, thereby reducing the prison capacity again. I also hear that more attention will be paid to the idea of one man and one cell, or one woman and one cell, and that the existing prison buildings will continue to exist, but that there will be fewer detainees.

This can lead to an increase in laxity. It can lead – I have already said this many times – to a decrease in conherence and efficiency in the execution of punishment, so that laxity is institutionalized. It is quite possible that these measures, no matter how well-intentioned and how well they would work in an efficient criminal enforcement system, will put a mortgage on the future of criminal enforcement policy.

Much has already been said about the purely legal aspect here today by the previous speakers. From left to right, from majority to opposition, not everyone is undividedly happy with this bill from you. The criticism of the State Council and the sharp and sharp criticism of the High Council for Justice have been put aside by you.

There is a fact that from now on, the execution of the penalty will be withdrawn from the court at least in part. There is the fact that you allow two laws to exist side by side. It is already difficult to evaluate from one law afterwards how it works and whether it works adequately. Well, soon one will have to evaluate not one law but two laws that exist side by side; 18 months after the entry into force it will have to happen, that will not be a sinecure.

Mrs. Minister, I hope that the High Council for Justice will be able to take a decision on this, and I fear that that criticism – ⁇ you are no longer a Minister of Justice – will not be bad for you; it is not already.

This draft law thus leads in the field that one could evolve to a form of punishment mitigation rather than punishment enforcement, even when a criminal has committed more serious acts. The example was already cited by colleagues about the recidivist who in fact receives a milder punishment than a heavier punishment. This could lead to a regression of the criminal policy.

Mrs. Minister, I think I have explained sufficiently that this is a bad advance to our criminal law system, to the Justice and to the magistrates in general. They will find it difficult to score with this law. And on May 25, you may find it difficult to score with lap tools to get Justice and the criminal justice system out of the slope. We therefore vote against.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer a few questions that have been asked. The introduction of probation as an autonomous punishment really introduces the punishment differentiation in our country. Those who are punished must be punished, but that does not necessarily have to be in a prison.

Of course, at some point there will have to be an evaluation of the various existing systems. I think this is also logical at a time when a new system is introduced. With this bill, we continue with the conscious policy that this government has conducted. This means that punishments must be tailor-made, because only in this way can one truly invest in integration and re-integration and can one reduce the rate of recurrence.