Proposition 55K0439

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 17 avril 1878 contenant le titre préliminaire du Code de procédure pénale en vue de supprimer la prescription des infractions sexuelles graves commises sur des mineurs.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Servais Verherstraeten
DéFI Sophie Rohonyi
MR Philippe Goffin
N-VA Sophie De Wit, Valerie Van Peel
Open Vld Goedele Liekens
Vooruit John Crombez, Karin Jiroflée

Submission date

Sept. 27, 2019

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

paedophilia sexual offence criminal procedure limitation of legal proceedings

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

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

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo LDD

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 7, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to the written report. For the Open Vld group, Ms. Liekens will subsequently give a presentation.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will begin my presentation with a few quotes because I think that especially the victims should be able to speak here.

Paul: “I am a man of 60. I was 11 when it happened and this is the first time I share my story. The perpetrator is walking quietly around here in my congregation and my silence has given him a lifetime free guide.”

Dirk: "I am fifty-five now and I myself do not understand why I have been silent so long, but it is so difficult to learn to deal with what happened to me; the associated emotions and feelings that most victims have to process all alone, because no one believes it, because the perpetrator manipulates you in shame and silence. I only realized at a very late age what had happened, when I was forty. It has taken me fifteen years to post this because the least can throw me back into the past: a movie, beautiful music, a wonderful performance, a mop, a smell, or new facts that emerge. All that time I was powerless. and again . The facts are outdated.”

Annie: “My youth has been taken from me. It took me until I was 36, before I started dressing and wearing myself as a woman, and even longer to understand how great the damage actually was. I got it through when my own children became as old as I was then. It is a pity that it came so late. Child abuse, in any form, should never age. Abusers are untouchable. Victims should have the feeling that one cannot simply get away with this and that such a perpetrator cannot continue to make victims. Because I’m not alone here in the village, I know that in the meantime.”

Lize: "I have been abused in my youth by my brother, who continues to deny everything, while I wasn't the only one he abused. He is supported by my mother. We were instructed to remain silent and to cover everything with the mantle of love. Act as if nothing happened. I have lived with this for over forty years. But now I am stronger in life and I can no longer be silent. I would give a lot for it if I could make at least one complaint so that he would have to answer. This is also part of the processing. I wanted to lose this for a moment, and I hope passionately that you can overturn the obsolescence of such substantial facts.”

Louis: “If the ageing deadline for child abuse had to be cut off, I would feel a lot less bad. It is too late for me, I know that. The pain, even if it was more than forty years ago, will never go away, but at least it will be different for later victims and that gives hope.”

After my own testimony three years ago, I have, without exaggeration, received hundreds of those emails, one by one of the victims. Among those stories there were only a few who could have brought it to a process and that is wrong, so wrong.

Still, even though it was three years ago, I am addressed by a new victim every week. We still underestimate how widespread child abuse is, we still underestimate what it does to someone and we often underestimate and do not understand why someone is silent for so long, while silence and manipulation by the perpetrator to silence is just an essential part of this type of crime.

Just because of this, the limitation period for many victims is unfortunately an unattainable horde. What stands out here today seems to some of you to be something that in practice will not immediately make the big difference, and for some lawyers among you it is a path that should not be walked. A friend of a lawyer once told me that for lawyers there are only two certainties in life: the sun rises and things age.

And yet I also ask them to question this certainty about these crimes, just as the Netherlands has done years ago, because child abuse is primarily a crime that includes silence.

This may be very difficult to understand for people who have not experienced it, but the numerous people who have experienced it understand this very well. Child abuses make that silence their trademark. They manipulate the victim, which is still a child, for this purpose, usually with very great success.

The result is that the child often only learns to speak about what exactly happened decades later. For all clarity, I do not want silence to strengthen. As a society, we have a duty to create a safe environment in which victims can get out immediately. That is not only healthier for them, but it also makes trials more likely to succeed.

Today we are where we are and we are not there yet. A lot of steps have been taken in recent years to address this topic more openly, but the road is still long. After all, there are still a lot of stories hidden, stories that arouse people from within and often never find their way out with all the consequences of it.

What appears here today is more than just a means to effectively punish more perpetrators. Today, almost all child abuse persons are free. Usually they are never even addressed to the facts. Only one person holds it with one victim. It is not unimportant to know.

So it’s not just about the established fact that every child abuser who gets caught means the salvation for our children. It is not just about that someone like Vangheluwe with this law today would not sit quietly enjoying his retirement but actually sat in the court. I would not regret that.

There is no reason to let the perpetrators go free when the evidence is available, merely and only because the facts are legally outdated. Those who have such crimes on their conscience, as far as I am concerned, will never have to walk peacefully around again.

This is about a lot more, colleagues. This is a signal of understanding for the victims. It is about the understanding that this limitation period for them is often another blow in a process that the victim must undergo powerlessly again and again. First as a child, later as the adult who, according to society, often did not come out on time with his story. What is on time? What is enough for fifteen years after adulthood? Twenty, or even thirty?

The day after my testimony, I was addressed one night by as many as six men over sixty to seventy years of age. They all remained silent until that day. They were presented specifically for this purpose. For them all, every day of their lives had been a struggle to understand what had happened to them.

Have they been silent for too long? Are they guilty of that? Or do we have a duty for them to keep at least all options open?

I understand that the burden of proof after all those years is very difficult, but it is also after fifteen years. That is even after 48 hours.

In addition, it will be up to the lawyers to be honest with their clients, to see if a case still gives a chance and to start looking for other victims of the same perpetrator, because they are there unfortunately often enough. Together we can prove.

Above all, the choice of what to do for once should lie with the victim, not with us. The victim has already suffered enough willoos. I hope therefore, dear colleagues, that you all want to support the bill beyond party boundaries.

I would like to thank everyone, but especially John Crombez, for taking the car. I hope you all understand the importance.

(Applause to all banks)

All groups are registered, I respect the order.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, it is obviously very difficult to speak here after the speech of Mrs. Van Peel, for whom I have a great deal of admiration, for her courage with which she came here to testify; I want to have said that for a moment.

The issue of sexual violence is also receiving a lot of attention in Parliament. This has been the case in the past and will ⁇ be the case in the future. I would like to remind you of the debates we have conducted in the past. In 2016, the Advisory Committee on Social Emancipation thoroughly examined the problem of rape, including with numerous hearings. That work resulted in a resolution unanimously adopted in 2017. It called on the government to take initiatives in numerous fields in the fight against rape and sexual violence, in order to reduce the dark number. That dark number is still very high, according to estimates 90 %; 90% of the victims do not take the step to Justice today, for many and often also understandable reasons.

This year, the High Council for Justice has formulated a whole series of recommendations to improve the approach of the Judiciary to sexual violence. They aim, among other things, to increase the low declaration readiness and to reduce the number of cases settled by the parquet. These figures are very high. It is also important to collect evidence faster.

Also in 2011 the special committee on sexual abuse discussed the problem thoroughly and made numerous recommendations. As a result, the limitation period for abuse of minors was increased from ten years to fifteen years from the victim’s age of majority. The abolition of the limitation period was never recommended in the previous work of the committee. Specific hearings on the abolition have never been held in the past.

That measure is now on the table. However, there was no room and no willingness in the committee to discuss the relevant proposals thoroughly with all relevant stakeholders. We deeply regret this from our group.

Opinions on the proposal are divided. There are great supporters with good and sensitive arguments, but likewise many individuals and organizations are reluctant with equally good arguments. It is a missed chance that Parliament has not heard the parties concerned.

Colleagues, everyone agrees that a global approach is essential for making big steps forward. We are talking about an approach that is expressed, for example, in the resolution of 2017, which I have already mentioned and which was unanimously approved in the House.

However, there is no such consensus as to the abolition of the limitation period. However, this does not mean that one is right and the other is not. We must conduct the debate in a serene way. We were able to do this in the committee.

Everyone wants to improve the situation of the victims. Everyone wants to be able to report faster and that there is sufficient expertise available to act quickly and professionally, both in the emergency services as well as in the police and Justice. Everyone also wants to have fewer suspension, that perpetrators are sentenced faster, and that there is as little recurrence as possible after a conviction.

Such crimes affect the integrity of the victim in an incomparable way, which often takes years to be able to talk about it and take the step to the police, the court or the relief service.

Proponents mainly point out those arguments when they advocate the abolition of the limitation period, but the later a declaration is made, the more difficult it becomes to collect evidence and testimony. It is essential that evidence is collected within 24 hours, at the latest after 72 hours. It is essential that the policy seeks to promote them.

The role of the provincial care centers after sexual violence – referred to in the questionnaire – is crucial. The approach in the care center of Gent, one of the first to start, demonstrates an enormous added value, also in cooperation with police and Justice. Unfortunately, these health centers are not available in all provinces. They only exist in three provinces. Unfortunately, the financial resources are lacking to establish them everywhere in the country. Ecolo-Groen therefore calls for prioritizing those resources. That would be a big step forward.

The problem of evidence is still there today, with the limitation period that exists today. That is correct. That is rightly noted by the supporters of the bill, but the introduction of the non-ageability does not solve this problem. The authors of the bill understand this very well. They themselves write in the explanatory note to the bill: "We realize that many years after the facts, evidence will no longer be found and a legal action will result in an out-of-court prosecution in the absence of evidence. Nevertheless, in our opinion, the possibility of appealing to the court remains symbolically important, not only for society, but especially for the processing of victims.”

The applicants themselves admit that this bill has primarily a symbolic significance, but that can also be important for the victims. On the other hand, it can also lead to the victims creating expectations that can no longer be fulfilled by Justice, because in the absence of evidence there will no longer be a conviction, which can lead to new frustrations and anger on our legal system and on the functioning of our Justice. In any case, there must be a place for victims where they can always reach out with their story and where they can get the necessary assistance and support.

It is important that victims have a place where they can end up with their story. Following the work of the special committee on sexual abuse, an arbitration college was established for victims of obsolete cases. There were, indeed, victims who were sixty, seventy, or eighty years old. For many of those victims, it was important that they were recognized for the suffering they had suffered, even though they knew that Justice could do nothing else. Initiatives have already been taken in this sense, places where one can go to report and talk about them, but they deserve much more attention and breathability. An extension of their operation is also necessary. Let us also do this with all of his work.

It is for all these reasons that our group, as in the committee, will abstain from voting. The problem deserves a broad approach. Our group will continue to work on this and for that you will always find a partner in us.

The prescription has always been one of the keys to our judicial system. It is a founding principle of our law, inherited from the Roman era and inscribed under Napoleon in the Code of Criminal Instruction of 1808.

The prescription allows to reconcile several fundamental requirements in our judicial system and establishes a fragile balance between, on the one hand, legal certainty, the right of persons prosecuted to be tried in compliance with the rights of defence and within a reasonable time, and, on the other hand, the essential right of victims. It is justified for many reasons that remain up to date.

First, the passage of time has consequences on the quality of the trial and on legal certainty, in particular due to the loss of evidence and the weakening of testimony. Furthermore, the effectiveness and effectiveness of justice require that investigations and trials be carried out promptly in order to ensure the usefulness of the punishment, without forgetting the principle of exceeding the reasonable deadline and the necessary preservation of the social peace resulting from it. Finally, according to the opinion of judicial professionals, the passage of a long time creates risks for legal certainty and an obvious risk of disappointment for victims. Indeed, if a complaint fails, if the ministry decides to classify without succession, or if the person concerned benefits from a non-place, an acquittement or a light penalty, the victims could experience these decisions as a denial of their word and their trauma.

That is why, in the eyes of my group, the principle of limitation remains essential and fundamental in our legal order. We affirm that this principle cannot have any other exception than that which is subject to our sagacity today. Indeed, dear colleagues, we know that sexual abuse of minors is a real plague and has caused a profound trauma in Belgium. No one can ever forget the victims who have made the press one; no one can forget the accounts of the victims of the Church; no one ignores that our work is not completed and that victims still exist within families and other instances.

For them, today, the Parliament wants to send a clear signal with a strong symbol: we recognize them in their status. We stand by their side and support them. The Parliament also wants to issue a warning to potential perpetrators so that they now know that no matter where they are and no matter when the victim speaks, they will be prosecuted.

Dear colleagues, this is just one step. May we do much more tomorrow by making every effort to bring down the taboo related to sexual assault so that the victims, minors or adults, feel powerful enough, supported, accompanied to denounce the facts as close as possible to the offence.

Let us make every effort to facilitate the establishment of evidence against perpetrators, thereby drastically reducing the rankings without follow-up, avoiding new victims and especially taking care of them immediately. To do this, let us give our police and justice, who suffer from a structural insufficiency of human, financial and material resources, the means to act humanly and quickly in the face of these crimes and these unacceptable crimes. Only such measures will have a real impact on this plague. Only such measures can effectively stop these dramas.

We fully support this bill. The Flemish Interest Faction is very pleased that in this file the spirits are finally ripe.

In the case of sexual abuse of children, it is important to note that this is primarily about power abuse. Against this abuse of power stands the restoration of equality. Many victims take years to come to the conclusion that they cannot live worthy of what happened to them. The knowledge that the facts are outdated at the moment victims are finally able to talk about them discourages them. They also struggle with the silence of society. The abolition or significant extension of the limitation period as a signal of the seriousness of the facts can break the discrepancy by society.

“We would like to see the limitation deadline completely abolished. In our current legal system, however, this would be difficult to implement. We therefore advocate for a significant extension of the limitation period to fifty years after the victim's majority."What I recently quoted comes from a bill submitted by Alexandra Colen, Bert Schoofs, Gerolf Annemans and Peter Logghe to our group on 10 January 2011. This happened following the confessions of Bishop Vangheluwe. This bill was then rejected by all the other parties of this hemisphere.

Today, almost nine years later, a ⁇ identical bill from the politically correct parties is finally on the table. Since laws cannot be applied retroactively, it is very unfortunate that some pedophiles have been given a nine-year longer chance to start the dance forever.

We also note that today there is a vote on a bill that completely abolishes the limitation period. This is also a fierce wish for our group, but we wonder whether this will survive the legality test at all levels. All parties had to unanimously approve our bill nine years ago.

I repeat, we are very proud that this bill is finally on the table today and we will therefore approve it with great enthusiasm.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, qualified as a new emotional law, this text effectively opposes lawyers, lawyers, magistrates to the victims and their representatives.

What are the arguments against? The removal of the limitation period is a general principle of law that applies to all offences. There are only a few rare exceptions: genocides, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Expanding the list of imprescriptible offences could therefore create a precedent and undermine the very basis of the prescription. Other offences may also justify this extension.

Then, lawyers highlight the difficulty of finding evidence years later and emphasize that, therefore, most lawsuits would result in a non-place.

Finally, the removal of the prescription would lead to an increase in the number of judicial errors.

No legalist can be insensitive to these arguments and yet the arguments in favor of the victims weigh much heavier in the balance and that, without falling into the emotional. Anyone who has been able to hear the testimony of victims of serious sexual offences knows how crucial time is in the process of acceptance, in the process of repair. Accepting that the fact has been committed, talking about it and finally deciding to file a complaint is an extremely long process. It can take decades as long as the trauma is deeply buried by these young victims, children or adolescents at the time of the events. Some will never dare to talk about it.

Voting the abolition of the prescription for serious sexual offences committed against minors may be contrary to the general principles of law. But how can we not be sensitive to the especially vulnerable character of a child in the face of abuse suffered and of which a thousand and one reasons such as fear, shame, loyalty, intimidation, guilt or rejection, prevent him from expressing himself at the moment of the facts.

My group co-signed this bill on the abolition of the prescription deadline because it is an important gesture towards the victims but it is also a strong signal to society because it finally puts an end to the sense of impunity of the perpetrators.

I dare hope that a large majority of the assembly will be sensitive to these arguments and will support, like us, this text.

Mr. Speaker, I take the floor today to tell you that my group will support this bill.

We support it because we understand the social need that justifies this text. We also support it because we know that filing a complaint may not be obvious due to a complex family context, post-traumatic amnesia, the perpetual consequences of these crimes, the influence of the aggressor.

By our gesture, we want to give our support to the victims. We want them to feel free to act, to fully exercise their rights, and that their victim status can be recognized, regardless of the delay.

I have been the father of a little girl for just a year. I can’t imagine anyone abusing my child. I don’t dare to imagine that his assailant could be a trusted person, a person belonging to his family environment, or be part of family friends. I dare even less to imagine that the day she had the courage to denounce this violence and to file a complaint, she could be prevented from doing so because the deadlines are over. For all these reasons, we support this proposal.

However, I would like to remind you that unprescriptibility exists for two types of crimes, namely crimes against humanity and genocides. Today, we are adding a third exception, but this should not be an open door to extending these exceptions to other crimes. If that were the case, the exception would lose all its meaning.

I would like to remind you of this warning.

In our society, it is unacceptable that perpetrators of such abominable crimes can escape justice because the deadlines have passed.

Mr. Speaker, I did not know what to expect, so I wrote down a few keywords.

For me, the fight against sexual violence was one of the main reasons why I decided to go into politics. I see, fortunately, that sexual violence is getting more and more attention here. The present bill, which I have put my shoulders under, is for me a first step in the right direction. It is important to say that: it is a first step in the right direction.

I know the opposing arguments. Most of you know them too. One of the major counterarguments is that we should encourage victims to report as soon as possible.

This remains of course the case. Reporting readiness – only 10 % of victims report – is far too low. We need to lower the threshold and we must continue to work on that. We must create a safe environment, we must ensure that the expertise is present, so that there is a safe place where victims can end up. Of course, one does not exclude the other. Therefore, we should not throw the child away with the bath water.

Another counter-argument that is often heard is that one is at risk of secondary victimization, because the victims will not be heard and the perpetrators will not be condemned, because the evidence naturally becomes scarce over the years, the witnesses are no longer there or remember it no longer, the physical evidence is gone, the traces are erased.

But experience teaches us that this is the case even after fifteen years. Even after fifteen years, the traces have been erased and evidence is becoming increasingly difficult. The crucial moment comes even after two days.

In short, this is also not a reason not to support the bill. Moreover, does the ageing not open the way for exact victimization, because the victims are actually accused of having waited too long with a declaration? In fact, they are told that they are guilty of the fact that a perpetrator is still free. This is also a reason for me to say that the limitation period should not be kept up.

But the main reason for removing the limitation period is that our society must signal that we take these crimes very seriously. The experience with victims of sexual abuse that I have as a psychologist and sexologist, nationally and internationally, teaches that this is exactly what perpetrators do. Criminals manipulate their victims, they have power over their victims, and they make it clear to them that everything doesn’t mean much, that everything isn’t so serious, and that they may have wanted it a little by themselves, like just friends with each other.

These are typical power games. It is the typical manipulation, which perpetrators use to silence their victims, apart from threats of course. Children often do not realize the seriousness of the facts and it takes a very long time before they realize it. It is very important for society to give the signal now that these acts are serious, so serious even that we never or never want to get the sponge over them. There is no deadline after which perpetrators can go free.

It is also important for the processing of victims that they are heard, that they are recognized for the facts that have been inflicted on them, even though there is less burden of evidence and even though they are at risk of losing the process. I think that is the responsibility of lawyers. Even then they can be heard, they can go somewhere.

The limitation period is another blow in the face of a victim. It is time to show understanding to the victims. However, our group realizes that this is only a first step in the right direction and that we will need to look at the problem of the limitation period as a whole. Currently there are strange situations. How do you eat an elephant? Piece by Piece of course. So let’s start with the first piece.

We support the bill and I make a warm appeal to them to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat unnecessary to conduct this discussion in the plenary session, because we are doing something that affects thousands of people in society incredibly.

Parties of different colours and families are accustomed to argue and knock themselves on the chest, saying that one was the first and that one did well – that has happened once this afternoon, but that is not bad – while victims only ask for a fair settlement.

Justice is not just a legal discussion. The subjects of the proposal were all contacted repeatedly and it turns out that it is about children or young people experiencing something they could not do against, where they, due to the dominant position of the abuser, as has already been explained here several times, years later can or dare to do nothing and which they think is better not to talk about for their surroundings. It is about that they suddenly one day, for example, when they themselves are the parents of a child who is old enough to become a victim, while the perpetrator of their abuse still runs free, is still able to commit abuse of power and may still be a perpetrator, can say that after twenty years they will no longer be silent.

That is reason enough for me, exceptionally, to drop the obsolescence. I say exceptionally, because we should not, like in the Netherlands, think that if we remove the possibility of limitation for such crimes, we should also do so for other crimes. It must remain an exceptional rule.

I can understand the arguments of the lawyers but I cannot accept them. It is difficult to gather evidence so, as Parliament, let us take the steps to be able to gather a lot of evidence in these cases.

In this way, people then get the chance that there will be a case, that there will be a conviction, and that there will be protection of other children.

Child abuse and sexual violence against minors are too common in our country. Especially girls and young women are the victims of this: up to one in six has already been the victim of it. In our country, perpetrators receive a very low punishment, which does not increase. It would then be better for Parliament to decide, in full understanding of the observations of legal practitioners, not to allow such acts to become obsolete and to take measures to make evidence collection much easier, so that the likelihood of a case coming out and the perpetrators being convicted is much greater. This is a social signal.

I would, therefore, like colleague Liekens, would like to call the plenary to vote in favour, even those who doubt, even with legitimate reasons, so that the social signal Kamerbreed is given. This is nothing more than a call. Everyone has the democratic right to do what he or she wants.

I would like to thank the colleagues from various political groups who have supported the proposal from the beginning, namely DéFI, MR, CD&V, Open Vld and N-VA, as well as the colleagues who have not signed the proposal, I would like to thank for the discussion we have held in the committee. It is an important step and, as far as I am concerned, let it be a beginning. After all, politics often shows the public that it is divided and that it is difficult to resolve and address matters.

Mr. Van Hecke is wrong that this would be just a symbol. It is much more than a symbol; it is a social issue on which we all ultimately agree that we must work hard on it and do much more about it. We have said for too long that we think this is important, without improving anything. So please let it be the beginning of measures that we can take across party borders to address the situation seriously.

I would like to reiterate my deep thanks to the colleagues who helped us to get here. Now only the vote. Vote for all. That is the only thing I can ask.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, today we have to take a decision on a ⁇ sensitive and delicate text. Not only because of the subject matter it targets, namely the imprascriptibility of sexual offences, not only for the public it targets, in this case that of minors, but also for the scope it assumes and the risks it could engender for the legal order of things, the judicial order itself.

We cannot help but be surprised that a text originally carried by the only Vlaams Belang and rejected by all other parties, just a few years ago, now finds itself at the heart of our debates with a seemingly massive support that no particular actuality imposes. And even though this would have been the case, we all know, to legislate in the rush, under the blow of emotion, is very often a bad advice.

At a time when so many issues should mobilize our country, one cannot stop asking about the urgency of having to deal with this matter despite even the slightest hearing, step yet demanded by our group repeatedly and by others so that our work is enlightened with the collateral and professional aspects of this case beyond the emotional question. We would indeed have wished to benefit from the contribution of experts to verify that the abolition of the prescription for these crimes and crimes meets well the interests of the victims, some of whom have sometimes made themselves strong to speak in their place.

This was denied to us and we regret it all the more because avocats.be and the trade union association of magistrates had expressed serious doubts and had repeatedly requested to be heard. Nevertheless, everyone will agree, and I have no doubt about this, that minors constitute a ⁇ fragile audience to which the greatest attention should be paid. Everyone will agree, I am also sure, that any physical or moral harm to a child or adolescent is condemned. Everyone will also agree, and the adoption of this text will demonstrate, that any sexual connotation assault is the most abject.

The text that we are discussing aims to respond to this deep social indignation by no longer limiting in time the possibility for a victim to attempt to obtain reparation by filing a complaint and by generating an investigation for crimes or crimes suffered before the age of eighteen and having a sexual or similar character. For some victims, we are aware, the criminal prescription is perceived as a denial of justice and as a major obstacle to reconstruction.

However, it must be asked whether, for others, the classification without consequence of their complaint, the non-location or the acquittal of the suspect, are not even worse, regardless of the moment. At the CDH, the willingness to protect the weakest drives our conviction that this text deserves to be supported despite a series of questions remaining. We have reserves, even, which continue to win us.

In what way would a cruel crime, after torture, knife or strangulation, committed against a minor, be less scandalous than a sexual offence that did not result in death?

Imprescriptibility would apply only in the latter case, and not in the others, on the sole grounds that there was no sexual dimension implanted on the horror. How can I explain this to parents? Imprescriptibility would apply in the future to someone who has committed voyeurism, and even an attempt at voyeurism. While it would not apply in the case of a child who has been abused, beaten or psychologically destroyed throughout his youth. Are we sure we are rational? Exhibitionism is elevated to the same rank, by virtue of this imprescriptibility, as crimes against humanity or genocides. Again, are we sure we are reasonable?

The amendment validated in the committee, aimed at expanding the disposal of the law, is in our view excessive. In the absence of the ability to return the text to a committee, where we do not have the right to vote, to re-analyze the text, but above all to analyze it seriously and without the precipitation desired by a large majority of the parties of this assembly, we must choose between two extreme positions: either reject a text containing excesses at the expense, in this case, of the legitimate protection of the weakest of us in a very specific framework, or validate a text that, despite its imperfections and shortcomings, ambitions to strengthen the insufficient protection to offer our minors when sexual offences target them. Between two evils, we must choose the least. Between two beliefs, you have to choose the strongest one. For the CDH, today, the one that is imperative remains and will always and above all be that of the protection of our children and adolescents.

We must remain sensitive to the suffering of the victims of very old and committed acts when they were minors. Despite our doubts, we will therefore vote in favour of this text in the hope that it will ultimately do more good than bad. We believe that there will probably be few victims of facts for which the prescription is not yet infringed who will want to file a complaint and, even less, who will obtain a condemnation - as, by the way, the authors of the draft law recognize. However, if this text can satisfy several victims, the better.

The examination of these complaints will mobilise resources that will not be devoted to others that are related to more recent acts. If one wants to prevent the attention paid to older victims at the expense of more recent victims, and vice versa, we will need, as we have been asking for a long time, to substantially refinance justice. He is the poor parent, shamefully and for too long, of our federal administration.

Finally, it should not be that the imprescriptibility of certain crimes and crimes, such as those on which we look today, announces the death of the criminal prescription as a whole. This is one aspect that the CDH will remain ⁇ attentive to in future discussions. Indeed, in many situations, this prescription continues to be meaningful.

I thank you for your attention.

In 1996, I was nine years old, exactly the same age as Julie and Melissa. I am thus part of this generation of children who have never ceased to say to themselves—during a period that must have been that of carelessness—that all these victims, that could have been us, our classmates, our sisters, our cousins, our neighbors.

It was from this matter that the legislator understood that it was necessary to conscribe in our Constitution and then in our laws any provision capable of better protecting children and, if necessary, allowing them to rebuild themselves, to overcome the trauma that they will carry in them all their lives and thus be fully recognized as victims of what they have experienced.

Our legislative proposal pursues precisely this goal. This proactive role of the state has also been recognized by the European Court of Human Rights in a unfortunately very abundant jurisprudence concerning pedophile crimes. That is why our bill aims to eliminate the prescription of sexual crimes against minors.

The prescription of public action means that after a certain period, the perpetrators of an act can no longer be prosecuted, in a logic of balancing the interests of the victim on the one hand and the rights of defence on the other. It is generally justified by the mitigation of the disturbance in the social order due to the time passed, by the depletion or the weakening of evidence, by the loss of memories among witnesses and the consequent increase of the risk of judicial error, or even by the infringement of the rights of defence. Allow me to tell you that these justifications are difficult to deal with the specificity of sexual crimes against minors, to which our bill is encoded, precisely as the Swiss legislature did in 2013, following a case of sexual abuse committed by a social worker on 120 children and for which only a quarter of his crimes could have been prosecuted because of prescription.

This specificity seems to me all the more important in view of the public order character of the prescription, which obliges the judge to confirm the prescription by office, although even the speech – often late in the victims of such crimes – has finally been able to liberate, and to translate into the filing of a complaint.

In the case of sexual crimes against minors, which are often incestual – in any case, in 90% of cases – the perpetrator has a very large grip on the victim. We have repeated it. And her authority allows her to abuse her victim, without her realizing at the time of the facts the criminal character of the acts perpetrated on her.

I wanted to return to an explanation given by Lilly Bruyère, who is the coordinator of the association SOS Incest. She also explains that in cases of incest, it is extremely difficult for victims to report members of their families. The child, the adolescent, is caught in conflicts of loyalty that often appear to him inextricably. Threats and blackmail against the child must also be taken into account. It follows that talking often means taking a risk, it is breaking a family and social omerta.

It is therefore, in addition to the trauma, this relationship of authority that makes the filing of a complaint extremely difficult and sometimes very late. It is therefore not the near expiration of a prescription that would motivate a victim to file a complaint, but rather its own physical and psychological reconstruction process, its ability to free itself from the influence of its perpetrator and its fear of retaliation. A whole journey that – it is true – can take a lot of time.

Today, victims can no longer hear that this long and difficult reconstruction process has taken too long to be recognized by justice.

So I wanted to respond to the critics of the unprescribability of sexual crimes against minors, point by point. And I will do so after taking care of consulting the victim associations that – indeed, Mr. Prevot – support our text.

No, the prescription of these crimes is not such as to ensure social tranquility and public order.

Let us not be told that allowing pedophile criminals to act with impunity for decades contributes to the social order, the majority of minors assailants are also multirecidivists!

Let us not be told that by institutionalizing the silence of the victims, by asking them to remain silent because they would have had less strength than others, they will nevertheless, one day ⁇ , end up being in peace with themselves! I think that by doing so, we take the risk of seeing their trauma worsen where, on the contrary, social tranquility would want to give the victims the time necessary to find the courage and strength to complain.

Let us not be told that public order ultimately comes to the forefront of the hypocritical calm of certain environments where abuses have been committed on the truth of the facts, however devastating it may be for the balance of these same environments!

No, the prescription of sexual crimes against minors does not limit judicial errors. As I said, minor victims of sexual crimes never talk about events that have often occurred over a certain period of time. They always do this months, years, or even decades later. They still need to do so, which is not always the case, as some of my colleagues have recalled.

In the absence of evidence such as DNA, which is otherwise only available up to 72 hours after the facts, testimony is thus still the first or even the only means of evidence recognized by the justice but also by psychiatric experts to attest the truthfulness of these sexual crimes.

Whether the complaint was filed a month or thirty years after the facts, it does not change the weight that this testimony will have to play. Testimonials are also easier to obtain after thirty years, at the end of traumatic stress, a phenomenon that is objectivable by IRM. The rate of false accusations for sexual crimes on minors, which is quickly detectable by psychologists, is also extremely low.

As for the risk of non-place, it exists, of course, as for any other crime, but nothing prevents the magistrates, as they already do now, to pronounce this non-place while having benevolence for the victims.

No, the current limitation period for sexual offenses against minors is not long enough. One victim recently ⁇ that it was only when her sister-in-law had told her that her half-brother, who had abused her until she was twelve years old, was now accusing her nephew that she had decided to file a complaint, except, that at that time, the facts were prescribed.

The current law does not take into account traumatic dissociation or rejection, which are phenomena by which the victim flees his trauma into a part of the brain to literally survive the facts, dissociation which is also observed in 100% of victims under the age of six. The victims then often realize their trauma around thirty-five or forty years, often when they become parents but also and especially when the facts are prescribed or in the process of being.

However, it is only then, when the victim has finally reappropriated its history, that she will think to file a complaint so that her assailant is prosecuted by justice but also to arrest him in his criminal career. Because a complaining victim does so both for its recognition as a victim and for the desire to protect new potential victims, haunted by the fact that its aggressor could still be harassing.

To this adds the ambivalence of the feelings of the victims of incest, shared between the love for their brother, their sister, their parents, the people who are supposed to protect them, and the hatred towards those same people who stole their childhood from them, but also in the end, their whole life so the consequences are and will remain profound.

The many victims who have written to us and continue to write to thank us for our bill, present themselves as survivors of these sexual abuses.

Yes, the imprescriptibility of sexual crimes against minors contributes to the protection of victims. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 20 percent of women and 5 to 10 percent of men say they have experienced sexual violence in their childhood and 25 to 50 percent of children report having been physically abused. The WHO also notes that 70 to 80 percent of these acts are committed by relatives. Today, only 10% of victims file a complaint and out of these 10%, only 1% results in a conviction!

This impunity of pedophile criminals implies that even if a complaint may not always lead to a conviction, it is important to be able to feed a file, lead to an investigation and ⁇ avoid new victims. Given the often recurring profile of perpetrators of sexual offenses against minors, allowing complaints, even decades after the events, will significantly increase the chances of leading to convictions of perpetrators of multiple victims, although they would not have a common history, except the identity of their perpetrator.

Our State has also committed itself on the international stage to seriously investigate all forms of rape and sexual abuse, and to punish their perpetrators.

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, dear colleagues, sexual crimes against minors are characterized by their disgusting character but also by the long and fatiguing reconstruction work that victims initiate to be recognized as such, beyond physical and psychological injuries that will have an impact on their intimate, social and professional lives, forever.

I would like to take advantage of this important debate to greet their courage but also the work of associations that accompany them, such as SOS Incest or Women of Right.

I would like at the same time to remind our assembly of its responsibility to protect the victims and to fight against the impunity of their aggressors. It is our moral and legal responsibility to give victims the means to rebuild themselves and, for this purpose, to remove the obstacles that deprive them of this fundamental right. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to briefly explain why I will abstain in the vote.

The reason for my abstinence is not in the main nature of the present bill, which I find in itself a good proposal. Nor do I appeal to legal haircrying, such as the disappearance of witnesses or the disappearance of evidence so many years after the crime was committed. Nor do I invoke Article 6, 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects not only the rights of the victim but also the rights of the perpetrator. I do not invoke Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (BUPO).

I will only abstain because I consider that there is a great disproportion and discrepancy between the nature of the crimes in the present proposal and the gravity of other crimes. Just then I applauded Mr. Maxime Prévot of cdH, who gave a wonderful example in this regard. According to the current bill, voyeurism never ages, but for those who murder a minor child, possibly even torture in advance, but so without sexual abuse, the crime ages. Based on common sense, this is very difficult. If the current bill is an incentive to carry out other legislative changes, then I support it 100%. However, the proposal, as it is presented now, cannot take away my approval.

I will abstain from voting.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the applicants and everyone who contributed to the bill. I would like to reply to Mr. Dedecker, where he referred to Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights or the right to a fair trial. Everyone, including the perpetrator, has the right to a fair trial. We have not for no reason endorsed the European Convention and will continue to do so, for all provisions, but victims of sexual delinquency also deserve a fair opportunity.

In order to give victims a fair opportunity, ⁇ given that many of them often do not dare to lodge a complaint in a timely manner, we want to give them that opportunity through the immortality. For example, the prosecutor’s office is a bit obliged to conduct investigations on the matter and it cannot and cannot hide behind it – it is often not desired, but it is currently legally obliged to do so – not to continue to work on the file.

There is indeed the problem of evidence, but the best way to answer it is not in changing the limitation period. The best way to answer the problem of evidence is to encourage people, once they are a victim, to submit a complaint as soon as possible, knowing that government, Justice and relief services are ready to catch them and protect them against those who have been the subject of the complaint.

Finally and in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to this assembly and to the public opinion that this is a procedure law. A procedural law shall enter into force immediately. All perpetrators whose facts are not yet obsolete should know that this law applies to them. We will therefore with great pleasure approve this bill.

I would like to thank my colleagues for the dignity of the debate. This is so rare in this assembly that it was worth pointing out.