N-VA and Vlaams Belang in opposition to ‘Frenchification of Brussels justice’

The N-VA announces proceedings at the Constitutional Court against the more flexible language rules for top magistrates in Brussels. The party fears a Frenchification of the Brussels justice system, but according to the Justice Cabinet, the reform protects the linguistic balance.

The federal opposition parties N-VA and Vlaams Belang are grumbling about a bill that regulates the language requirements for top magistrates and the appointment of the Crown Prosecutor of Brussels.

An adjustment was necessary because the Constitutional Court had already annulled the existing regulations in 2014. The law stipulated that the head of the Brussels public prosecutor’s office had to have obtained a diploma in French, making Dutch speakers ineligible for the position.

A change in the law will address this. From now on, the prosecutor may be of both language roles, as long as his deputy speaks the other language. The same applies to the Attorney General and the President of the Brussels Court of Appeal. From now on, Brussels police chiefs must also have ‘functional’ rather than ‘thorough’ knowledge of the second national language.

But the reform upsets the N-VA and Vlaams Belang. They fear that the bill, which will be discussed by the House on May 8, will herald a far-reaching Frenchification of the Brussels judicial leadership. The N-VA is therefore already announcing proceedings before the Constitutional Court against the law. Vlaams Belang invokes a conflict of interest in the Flemish Parliament to prevent further consideration in Parliament.

According to the Justice Cabinet, the new regulation actually protects language balances. According to the Council of State, the language alternative between the Attorney General and the President of the Court was a temporary arrangement. “We are now correcting this by writing the language alternative into law,” Minister Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD) said in parliament.

The introduction of a requirement for functional bilingualism should guarantee that chiefs of police are bilingual. This is not the case now, because four top positions do not require any bilingualism. ‘The role of chief of police is primarily a management function. He does not judge. Thorough bilingualism is required to be able to administer justice in both languages ​​and that will remain the case,” says Van Tigchelt.

The minister contradicts the fact that the top judicial authorities are extensively Frenchifying. The current picture is predominantly French, but that is a temporary situation. The current Attorney General Frédéric Van Leeuw and the president of the Brussels Court of Appeal Laurence Massart are French-speaking. The new federal prosecutor Ann Fransen, who heads the federal public prosecutor’s office, is Dutch-speaking.

For the next ten years, the public prosecutor of Brussels must still be a French-speaking magistrate, while the labor prosecutor will remain Dutch-speaking. ‘The decision was made to start this way because the Brussels prosecutor has been Dutch-speaking in recent years and the labor prosecutor has been French-speaking. That changes after two mandates.’