Proposition 53K3301

Projet de loi portant insertion des dispositions réglant des matières visées à l'article 77 de la Constitution dans le livre XVII "Procédures juridictionnelles particulières" du Code de droit économique et modifiant le Code judiciaire en vue d'attribuer aux cours et tribunaux de Bruxelles une compétence exclusive pour connaître de l'action en réparation collective visée au livre XVII, titre 2, du Code de droit économique.

General information ¶

Submitted by

PS | SP the Di Rupo government

Submission date

Jan. 17, 2014

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

consumer protection civil procedure consumer movement commercial law legal code

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo ∉ N-VA LDD VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Peter Luykx (CD&V) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

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

Full source

In normal circumstances, I would refer to the written report. However, I have a small problem with this now, because as many as three different documents contain a written report.

Why don’t you mention all three?

You can try that, Mr. Landuyt.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will give an additional explanation and then you will conclude that there is something interesting and remarkable to note about the progress of the work in the Parliament.

The committee will meet for the first time on 28 January to discuss this bill. The draft law is initiated and explained by the Minister, who proposes to the members to submit questions in writing so that they can be dealt with on a well-founded basis the week following. Of course, we are looking forward to this with great pleasure and therefore a lot of questions are asked. The committee will meet again on 4 February and 11 February. During those meetings, not only the written questions are answered, but additional oral questions and an additional debate are followed. You will find a drop in the published report.

Before the report comes to the plenary session on 27 February, it is submitted as a draft report to the members who spoke. In accordance with Article 78 of the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber, the members who have taken the floor may make improvements to the texts attributed to them, with which I add the Rules of Procedure.

Well, I have on paper the amendments that the Cabinet of the Minister wanted to implement to the report. As you can see, on page 47 a substantial portion has been deleted and almost the entire page 75 has also been deleted.

It is of course important that changes can be made. After all, a report is not a literal representation, but a form of summary and a downside of the debate. Anyone who finds that it is not correctly displayed or who finds that nuances are missing, can correct them. That seems to me very logical and that is also very important, because on the basis of the accumulated argumentation there is a majority, which approves a bill or bill. If there is subsequent debate about the interpretation, then judges and lawyers review those parliamentary documents, which are a piece of jurisprudence.

They reflect the spirit of the proposal and give a clear indication of what the legislator intended with the proposal. It is therefore important that the report is a correct representation of what was said during the debate.

I have full confidence in the staff of the Commission Secretariat. They usually do their job very well. Some people apparently disagree with this, because they went through with the rough brush and sometimes even scratched too enthusiastically. Thus they removed not only their own interventions, but also those of colleague Van Hecke. The committee secretaries did not agree with this, because, according to the secretaries, one can only make changes to his own part. It is therefore stated that the relevant piece must be retained.

Then the discussion broke out. As a rapporteur, I asked if this could be done. There were quite extensive changes made, which, in my opinion, may no longer be in line with what was said during the debate, which I ⁇ to the person concerned, colleague Van Hecke. I also ⁇ this to the Speaker of the Chamber, who proposed an addendum to the report.

While this is being discussed, the Minister asks for the word and asks the President, since there is discussion, to submit the question to the plenary session in order to send the draft back to the committee for further discussion.

The subsequent discussion is very strange. It is noted that there is an attempt to remove an intervention from another speaker, which I immediately correct by pointing out that I actually have the changes made with me. On questions about this in the press, the Minister complains that he had adjusted his answers and that, since he had adjusted his answers, the questions no longer were correct.

The students of Minister Vande Lanotte who are yet to pass the exam with him will be very pleased with this reaction. They will gladly use the reasoning that the questions are no longer true, because they have adjusted their answers. This seems to me to be a very strange way of working.

The Minister then apologized for the faith and honesty of the colleagues.

As mentioned, it is important that the given answers are corrected accurately. Everyone can make mistakes and corrections are not a problem. Of course, this happens best in all openness and not almost secretly afterwards through a crack in the report, so that we know what we are voting for and so that the intentions of the legislator are clearly displayed.

Therefore, on March 11, a new discussion in the committee, where the minister submits a legal document, follows a legally substantiated answer to the original questions of colleague Van Hecke. You will find that document back in the additional report, which was rounded up on the banks. That additional report is a very correct tool. In this way, there is clearness. Collega Van Hecke can find himself in it and the committee adopts the report.

Here is my comment on the progress of the matter as a rapporteur. I gave the course of the work. You can find a corrected downfall of the debates in the report. I would like to pass on to the substantive comments of my group on this bill.

The draft law aims to give groups of corrupt consumers the opportunity to act jointly before the court in the event of a damage incident, a mistake made by a company. It is clear that there is a need for this. Such a possibility is necessary not only for consumers, but also for the legal system itself. Do I still need to recall the misery and chaos of large trials such as those against Lernout & Hauspie, because it is very difficult for our legal system to deal with a large group of subdued?

This initiative is ⁇ welcome. We fully support this. Moreover, we have made our own proposals in this regard, because we support the idea. In addition, the text contains good elements. This means a mandatory negotiation procedure, which can result in a friendly settlement, so that the step to the court may eventually no longer be needed. That is a good thing, which avoids overload of the court and provides a solution. A compensation agent shall be appointed, which shall be responsible for correctly settling the compensation for the suffered damage with the damaged consumers. So far, however, the good points in the draft law.

In our opinion, its importance is immense, but its applicability is very limited, too limited. It is applicable only to consumers in consumer matters and therefore only to natural persons, not to pendlers and not to dumped investors or co-operatives of for example ARCO, Groenkracht or Lernout & Hauspie, while there is a need to do so. Just look at the misery with the Fortis Process, that will also not be an obvious thing.

Legal persons cannot participate either. And that is also a fundamental problem.

Groups of self-employed persons who suffer damage due to a supplier’s error, such as a bankruptcy at Banksys or incorrect bills from an electricity supplier, cannot act in group. We know things from the past that systematically made a mistake. They cannot act in group and are excluded from the procedure. I think this is wrong, which is a very unfortunate matter. The League for Human Rights had also wanted to act in a number of matters in a group. It is especially unfortunate that this cannot be done here.

It is also ⁇ regrettable that this will only apply to damages that are yet to occur, to new matters, not to existing matters in which we already establish damages today. This is ⁇ regrettable. Also look again at cases that have not yet come to court, but in which the damage is already established, such as Fortis and ARCO.

In fact, the biggest problem in the draft law is not only the applicability limited to consumers, but above all the access to the procedure. Access to this procedure is strictly restricted and is only open to recognised consumer organisations. Only those recognized today in the Consumer Council, who are already members of it and are good friends, are allowed to participate. Who can still do that? Organizations recognized by the Minister.

I don’t know if the term crony capitalism tells you something, dear colleagues. You can find the explanation on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there is no Dutch-speaking name for it, maybe you can invent it. Crony capitalism is a system, a kind of society, in which success in, for example, business is very strongly determined by good relationships with the government and policy makers. We do this effectively here. Who can initiate such a procedure? No spontaneous groups of deceived consumers, no, only recognized consumer organisations who are good friends with the Consumer Council or who are recognized by the Minister. Only those who maintain good relationships can start such business. This is a disregard, a ⁇ paternalist attitude towards so many people who would be too well able to spontaneously organize themselves and spontaneously initiate such a procedure ad hoc, if necessary.

For example, I wonder if an organization would be so inclined to discuss related matters or former related matters. If there are problems with Green Power and the like, then one could ask questions. I’m not talking about facts, but one could ask questions about them.

It is clear that some parties find this too restrictive. On the basis of the discussions I have determined that amongst others the Greens, but actually also CD&V and members of the Socialist Parliament wanted to go further. They felt that we needed to lower the threshold and that we needed to offer more opportunities. However, the minister’s response was always the same, namely that he would like to go further, but that this was the first and most feasible step. I wonder if this most feasible step, le gouvernement du faisable, was effectively the only feasible one. I mean not. There were parties who wanted to go further and wanted to support a further initiative. However, it could not. Why can’t it? Maybe because they are looking for a compromise within the majority, within the government. Apparently, a majority should not be sought beyond the boundaries of the current majority and opposition. It is ⁇ regrettable that matters for which there is wider support in Parliament do not go through because they are limited to the compromises within the government. This is ⁇ regrettable.

Therefore, I would like to make a final appeal to those parties who have the heart in the right place and who also want to give their voice to deceived pendants, deceived cooperatives, deceived investors, victims of PIP implants, victims of abuse in the church and victims in entirely other matters and to provide access to an efficient procedure before the court. I give these parties the opportunity to make this possible today. I adhere to amendments. I would say: those who effectively have the heart in the right place and also those people who want to give a vote can simply approve those amendments. There may be a majority here today to give these people that opportunity too.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, we look forward to the establishment of a collective appeal that we are proposed to vote today. The Government has clearly assumed its responsibilities by generating a consensus on the contours of the collective appeal in Belgium. We had to settle. This is what has been done.

Obviously, some will say that we should have gone further, that we should have gone out of the single field of consumer disputes. The “only to” are usually in a very comfortable posture because they have no responsibility to assume. Following their principles, we would not, at the time I speak to you, still have a collective reparation procedure in Belgium for the next twenty years.

The first step is often the most difficult. He was put. Belgian consumers did not have a collective action procedure that allowed them to act together in order to obtain compensation for a mass damage they suffered. However, consumer protection cannot be real and comprehensive if they are not offered effective means of enforcing their rights.

The introduction of a collective action will facilitate access to justice by reducing costs for applicants and will allow, in particular, compensation for damages that are currently not repaired due to their low amount, the cost of a procedure being too high in comparison with the same. The merger of actions will help to save judicial resources and will also offer advantages to defendants, as the cost of a group action is lower than that of multiple collective actions. It will enable uniform jurisprudence, avoiding conflicting judicial decisions concerning the same case, and thus the strengthening of legal certainty that benefits all parties.

By increasing the weight of consumers over ⁇ and thus having a clear deterrent effect on them, collective action will play a role in preventing and regulating the market. We can therefore clearly only show satisfaction with this major advance for the consumer and we will be very attentive to its full implementation.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the present bill is an important step, ⁇ in the benefit of consumers and especially those who suffer damage from a company. Usually the step to the court for them is much too big and too expensive. They don’t feel strong enough in relation to a large company and the procedure is often extremely time-consuming and expensive. The result is usually that the individual consumer suffers the damage and does nothing. This is changed thanks to this draft law on the legal action for collective recovery.

This procedure is not only good for consumers, who can take a stronger position, but we think it is also positive for companies. As consumers no longer initiate individual lawsuits against a company, there will be fewer procedures, which reduces the procedural costs for the companies.

At first, there was fear that we would end up in U.S. states with extraordinary claims for damages, but this bill includes a number of means to avoid that. Thus, there is an obligation of the group representative and there is always an obligatory friendly phase. Finally, it also applies the principle that the losing party pays the procedure, in order to avoid U.S. states.

There is no need to argue that the CD&V group has been a petitioner for years for a legal action for collective recovery. CD&V had, by the hand of colleague De Clerck, submitted a bill containing a procedure for collective damages settlement. I see a lot of similarities between our original bill and the current bill. I am referring, among other things, to the possibility of access to the court through a representative, to the possibility of negotiating to conclude agreements without the intervention of a court, and to the fact that the judge makes a decision on the merits in the absence of an agreement. These are similarities between our bill and the current bill.

However, there is also a big difference, namely the scope of application. This has been repeatedly cited by colleague Dedecker. It was deliberately chosen to limit the scope of this bill to consumer disputes, in order to gain step by step experience with this entirely new legal figure. The scope of application may be expanded in the future.

The draft law provides for an evaluation after three years. We are in favour of this review and of any revision of the law and we will ⁇ advocate its extension.

We are satisfied with the present bill. This is an important first step for consumers, but we urge you, Mr. Minister, to make the system sufficiently known to consumers so that they know what their potential rights are. We hope that you will use the necessary resources for this.

We are very pleased and will ⁇ support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, this bill founding the foundations of collective action was expected by the consumers of our country. My colleague in the MR group, Marie-Christine Marghem, had also submitted a bill to introduce a form of collective action in Belgian law, which was attached to this project during the discussions.

The purpose of the bill presented to you today is to bring new security to consumers in case of consumer dispute. Those consumers will therefore benefit from a new tool allowing them to act collectively and no longer individually, in order to obtain compensation for a damage that would be proven.

Among the main characteristics of the project, I will note in particular that it is a hybrid system that is neither exclusively opt-in nor exclusively opt-out, but left to the judge’s judgment for each action after hearing the parties in this regard; also the fact that only well-defined associations and not individuals can act as representatives of the group.

The draft law does not change the law on civil liability. It establishes a specific procedure. It begins with a mandatory amicable phase of three to six months, eventually extended. If this phase ends with a failure, a decision on the substance will be made by the judge. This decision will determine either a total amount or an individualized amount for each member. However, it should be noted that the parties may at any time of the proceedings reach an agreement and request the judge to approve it.

If my group supported the bill, however, it would have seemed fairer to us that once the compensation for damage has been determined and executed with the group, any surplus related to the provision that the defendant would have made during the procedure for compensation for damage is returned to the defendant. This option was not adopted. It will then be the judge to decide on the destination of the relic.

In a society in which there is a globalization of economic risk, legal mechanisms should be developed. The collective action as proposed and framed in this bill contributes to this evolution.

In fact, joining the collective action allows to ⁇ scale savings on judicial costs, to obtain more speed and more efficiency because several requests are processed simultaneously.

By voting this text, Belgium follows the footsteps of France, the National Assembly having adopted last February 13 the draft law on consumption, thus opening the right for consumer associations to initiate group actions.

I think the discussion of this bill is a very important moment, a historical moment too. This law will, after the vote, allow citizens’ claims to be dealt with in a global, collective way.

Speakers before me have already discussed the importance of it and the benefits it can offer to consumers if they are numerous but often faced with small damage, where an individual consumer would not initiate a lawsuit against often very large opponents.

We need to go back in history. There is often talk about European legislation, about cartel legislation and the prohibition of cartels and agreements made between companies.

For example, radiator manufacturers have made price agreements for decades, causing consumers to pay 10, 20 or 30 % too much for those radiators.

If one has to do it alone and it is about a damage of 200, 300, 500 or 1 000 euros, many will wonder if it is worth it. Such legislation makes it possible to protect and assist thousands or tens of thousands of victims through a single procedure and to ensure, on the basis of a number of objective criteria, that compensation can be granted to any victim who meets a number of conditions and has suffered damage in a given period.

So this is a good system, but it is too limited. This is also the criticism that my colleagues have given me.

It is limited to consumer disputes. The law states that it must be contractual provisions, concluded with companies and companies. Therefore, it should be contractual disputes or disputes arising from a set of approximately thirty legal provisions, laws, regulations, KBs, implementing decisions or European regulations.

Of course, consumers are very important in this. They must be protected first of all. However, the choice to limit it to consumers is too limited.

Why not extend the possibility to other matters, for example financial matters? We have already known examples. Everyone knows that our legal system fails to bring such monster trials to a good end, or that it can only do with much delay, resulting in a complete disorganisation of Justice. Think of the Lernout & Hauspie trial conducted before the Court of Appeal in Ghent: the hearings alone may have lasted two years, until the judgment. Three judges worked full-time for two years.

Decisions were made on the criminal proceedings. Now they want to deal with the civil interests. You can become a civil party. Currently, about 15,000 people have made themselves a civil party. The present draft law will not change this, even if the damage event would occur after the entry into force of the law. This means that 15 000 letters must be sent to victims when a notification needs to be made. This means that 15 000 conclusions must be submitted to the court. This means that 15,000 sentences will have to be sentenced. If an appeal is filed, it will have to be notified 15 000 times. If one goes into cassation, it also becomes a huge bullshit.

The Court of Appeal in Gent requests the support and assistance of administrative staff and magistrates in order to deal with this. Today we miss a historic opportunity to settle that too and to ensure that such a thing in the future can also be handled in an orderly manner.

Why not extend the possibility to physical injury resulting from an unlawful act? Why is the possibility limited to contractual disputes? The draft law could also be perfectly extended to the provisions of Article 1382 and following of the Civil Code, with a number of limitations if necessary. It would have helped many victims of damage caused by an unlawful act.

Think, for example, of accidents in which many people were injured, such as the case-Gellingen, or more recently, the flight show in Koksijde, the train disaster in Buizingen. They were all accidents with one cause, one fact of which often hundreds or thousands of people were the victims in some way.

Today it is often a path of suffering for victims, because in such cases there are tens to hundreds of lawyers and various parties are involved, all with different interests, who can take all certain procedural steps that can delay the case. Today we miss the opportunity to make arrangements for such complex matters as well.

I am not saying that everything will be very easy in the case of group claims. However, it will be much easier for the many victims. We miss that opportunity today.

Why do we work with a limiting list of laws on which one can rely? What was actually done? The current legislation relating to consumer protection has been examined. It was listed. If one chooses that method, colleagues, then one will have to amend this law again and again when a new law is adopted which relates to the protection of consumer interests, if one wants that also fall under the application of this law, which is also the logic.

Article 3 or 4 shall no longer refer to the law referred to in Article 3, 30°, but shall become 31°, 32° and so on. Again and again this law will have to be amended in order to be able to add a new law. This is a very complex way of working. From a legislative and technical point of view, this method is ⁇ not preferable.

One note on the scope is that one can only invoke violations of federal or European legislation, but not violations of, for example, decrees. One could, of course, say – and the minister will probably do so later – that consumer protection is a federal competence and that there is no legislation at the regional level. I would not dare to say that. I would not simply dare to say that in certain disputes one cannot only appeal to federal laws and to certain decrees.

When an individual legal seeker initiates a trial before a court, he can perfectly invoke violations of laws and decrees or regulations. When the group claim will be used, this will not be the case. This is also regrettable.

How and by whom can the claim be brought? This is my second series of comments. They have chosen to work with associations. One could say, if one looks at it positively, that consumer associations have a certain expertise and knowledge. They know consumer law well. They are simply to come up for the consumers. They can play a good role in this. I have nothing against those associations. They also play a good role, but what we are doing now is giving them, and only theirs, the opportunity to carry out such procedures.

The disadvantage is double.

First, one creates a kind of monopoly, for in practice only one, two, or a maximum of three associations will have the ability to establish such group claims.

Secondly, if a victim or a group of victims wishes the case to be treated as a group claim, they must look for an association that is willing to bring that claim. If no association is willing to do this, then everyone remains in the cold and there is no possibility to initiate a procedure through a group claim anyway. That is of course the big problem here. It could also be that an association such as Test-Acquisition has already launched two or three claims in a year and indicates that it, on the basis of its staff, its organization or due to financial reasons, can no longer handle that year. One will then only be the fourth or fifth in a row, and stand in the cold.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, instead of explicitly selecting a number of associations and attaching specific conditions to them in the list, it would have been better to opt for a general arrangement. As I have already stated in the committee, it would have been better not to incorporate that arrangement into this code, but to give those associations the opportunity to act in accordance with their statutory purpose, with rules and conditions applicable in all procedures, through a general provision in the Judicial Code. Now we are in the phase of recovery. In our law, there are already dozens of laws giving associations a certain possibility to go to court, but with different conditions each time. That incrimination of the law, against which many professors have been protesting for twenty years, is continuing, and today the same mistake is again committed. These are missed opportunities.

A third issue, which has been discussed, which is reflected in the report, is the coincidence of a civil procedure and a criminal procedure. This is not well arranged, Mr. Minister. You denied this in the committee, but this is not well arranged. Now it is perfectly possible to conduct a civil proceedings, regardless of whether a criminal proceedings are underway and regardless of the ruling thereof, while our normal rule of law is that a civil judge must wait for the ruling of the criminal judge. If the civil court would judge that there is an infringement against a certain legislation, resulting in thousands of consumers being held liable and receiving compensation, and two years later there is a criminal case for exactly the same dispute, because there are also infringements being punished, it is perfectly possible that the criminal judge in a different assessment states that there is no criminal infringement. However, it may be about the same legal dispute or dispute.

There are two different courts. It is then perfectly possible that on the basis of this law thousands of consumers choose the civil procedure, and get equal, while thousands of others choose to stand civil party before the criminal court and eventually get heard that no mistake has been made, and that there is no condemnation for the company.

The aim of this law was precisely to ensure that as many victims as possible are treated equally when they are the victims of the same defect against consumer law. This is not arranged. This could have been settled by saying that when there is a judgment of a civil judge, the criminal judge on those points is also bound by the civil judgment. This method, by the way, exists in Belgian law. It should be possible here too.

I remain, Mr. Minister, that there remains a gap here that will most likely have to be solved through judicial practice. Per ⁇ this should be addressed to the Court of Cassation. I find it very unfortunate that with this very important law we can already see this problem arise but that it is not regulated.

That, colleagues, brings me to the last point, which gave rise to the heisa about what I may call the manipulation of the report.

The extent to which the law will apply to medical cases is a debate we have held. Even if one reads the bill well, it is very difficult to find out whether medical disputes can be understood in some way.

The excellent report presented by colleague Dedecker has perfectly outlined how the presentations have been conducted. Mr. Minister, I deeply regret the way in which the report was amended by you or your cabinet. As a result, the report was no longer a faithful reflection of the discussion held in the committee. And that is what it is about. Two pages were deleted and completely modified. It was specifically concerned with the potential liability of hospitals for mistakes made by doctors bound by an employment contract.

Initially, you stated that it could not be for doctors bound by a labor contract, and that the law on labor contracts was not applicable. This was also stated in the initial report. Subsequently, all these passages have been changed.

It even went to the extent that amendments were made to my statements, which according to the Rules of Procedure cannot.

I also agree with the statements you made later, Mr. Minister. You said that you had made changes to the answers and that you had to adjust the questions as well. I think this is a special punishment. Imagine that there are exams. Ten questions are drawn up and ten answers are formulated; the assistants get to work, they get the sheets in, and they have to check if the correct answer has been given. After a while, they find that the answers they had planned are actually not correct, and they correct those answers. Then the questions should also be changed, but the exams have already passed. Something would be experienced.

Mr. Minister, the explanation you have given to respond to the amendments is completely unacceptable.

I did not intend to speak.

We have proposed to delete a question that Mr. Van Hecke had asked. This was not accepted by the secretary, so it was not deleted. Due to the adjustment I made, this question no longer fits into the context. If we had left them, the question would have been absurd. Indeed, we would have better not done that. It would have been better if the question was absurd, which would have been good for the report.

Because you specifically responded to one sentence that we had improved, the question was no longer relevant. There is a theory of falsification. What you do is ridiculous.

My cabinet has tried to better formulate what was said so that the reader of the report understands it better. That is all that has happened. Was it our intention to change your words? and no. That is nonsense. You, of course, believe the opposite, but what you say is just nonsense.

I made a mistake. When we came to the Chamber, you said that I had changed your text, and I answered that we would go back to the committee with it. My only mistake was that I believed you.

Mr. Minister, with your answer you simply confirm what I just said.

Mrs Lalieux, you just need to read the two versions of the reports. Then you will react differently.

Mr. Minister, you say my question is absurd. That question, of course, was not absurd, but by changing the answer, the question was no longer correct and had become absurd. Not because she was absurd, but because you changed the answer. Then, of course, the question was no longer correct. You should not make these changes.

( ... )

If you would like to make any substantial corrections to your answer, you were free to say here in the plenary session that you would like to make an addition. You could say that you may have answered that question incompletely and may have requested a correction. You chose the other path by choosing to make changes to the report.

You told me, I quote, “What you said and what you change to it is your business. I didn’t bother with that.”You told me that at the entrance. Now you say the opposite. You just said: I hope we can see the report literally. You said that your question had become absurd because of the adjustments we made. I hope that the report contains what you literally said, because it is very relevant.

These are your words, Mr. Minister.

You just said that. I hope the report reflects what you say. very interesting .

You simply confirm your tenacity in this matter.

On Tuesday, there was a new text from your cabinet, in which you answered the questions I asked. These are answers that are completely different from the answers you gave in the committee.

These answers were indeed answers to the questions. The result of this is the following. That was the purpose of the questions.

The first question was about the scope of the law. Is it possible that this law can be used in the case of wrong implants and prostheses? Yes, the answer is through the product liability law. Second, is it possible that hospitals can also be held accountable? Yes, the answer is, because a hospital can be a business, and if errors are made at the hospital level, a group claim can be brought against the hospital. It is very clear and very important for the preparatory works that this is very clearly formulated. Three, when it comes to the doctors, you also said in your additional answer: indeed, doctors can be bound by an employment contract. In fact, the law on employment contracts exists and can be applied.

Then there is the discussion, with the existing jurisprudence and legal doctrine on the application of the law to employment contracts, in which cases there will be liability. In theory it is possible, in practice it may be difficult, but not excluded. The discussion that follows is a substantive discussion. You say it is completely excluded. I say that the possibility may exist, but it will be decided in the jurisprudence whether it can be applied.

Colleagues, not because of the discussion on the report, but because of the substantive arguments we have put forward, we will not approve this law.