Projet de loi portant assentiment à la Convention entre le Royaume de Belgique et la République fédérative du Brésil sur le transfèrement des personnes condamnées, faite à Bruxelles le 4 octobre 2009.
General information ¶
- Submitted by
-
The Senate
- Submission date
- Oct. 29, 2013
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- Brazil international agreement transfer of prisoners accession to an agreement
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA LDD MR
- Abstained from voting
- VB
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
March 13, 2014 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
President André Flahaut ⚙
Mrs Daphne Dumery, the rapporteur, on a mission, refers to her written report.
Els Demol N-VA ⚙
Mr. Speaker, at the request of Mrs. Dumery, I will make a brief presentation.
Of course, my group is in favour of the transfer of convicted persons to their countries of origin and we will therefore support the proposal. However, we would like to make a comment.
My colleague, Ms. Dumery, has already pointed out in the committee that, despite the similar agreement with Morocco, between 1997 and 2007 no convicted Moroccan agreed to a transfer. That treaty was therefore amended. The consent was withdrawn.
However, this is not the case with the present agreements: again, they have no binding effect.
In the light of the experience with Morocco, one can ask whether it still makes sense to conclude treaties without binding effect.
Bruno Valkeniers VB ⚙
Mr. Speaker, normally our group would have no problem with approving the Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance with a democratic country such as Brazil, unless a provision allows Belgium to no longer cooperate in the field of legal assistance if the request relates to a crime for which a life imprisonment is imposed in the law of the applicant party, unless that applicant party provides sufficient guarantees that that sentence is accompanied by a possibility of release of the convicted person on time.
We find this incomprehensible and unacceptable, colleagues.
That provision means, concretely, no less or no more than that Belgium does not want to cooperate with Brazil to prosecute, for example, a serial killer, unless that country promises that criminal can still be released. In other words, we export our own lax criminal law.
Like in our criminal law, the Convention aims to make cooperation with the Brazilian Criminal Court subject to the application by Brazil of the principle of compressible penalties. That is the world on her head.
The incompressibility of penalties should be the rule for us. Therefore, we will abstain from voting on draft no. 3367/1 and no. 3368/1 during the vote.