Questioning Justice
2013/14
On Day 2 of the congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the >500 participants gathered in 5 commissions (link for the program here). Your #justicewatcher presented his paper in Commission 5 on the theme ‘The right on resistance, protest and organization in the context of MAS, Municipal Administrative Sanctions in Belgium’.
Some excerpts:
“Only despots rely on fear and anyway, all concentration of power will once be misused, is the essence of Montesquieu’s teachings. This aspect seems to me the essential shortcoming of the MAS-system. Precisely because anti-democratic fundamentals are part of its DNA, MAS-sanctions will corrupt the best of policies even with the best of politicians and the best of their intentions.
(...)
The essence of the MAS-system is still that a local administrator and not an independent judge fines citizens with sanctions that are penal sanctions in the terms of art. 6 ECHR.
When the Commission for the Interior of the Chamber of Representatives asked for written advice, I was not the only one making the point “that elementary principles of the rule of law can not any more be explained to the young generation, confronted with #MAS. This turns out to be anti-pedagogic for our your young and vulnerable citizens. Those are the seeds of cynism, frustration and revolt”.
The same position was held by the Children’s Rights Commissioners Bruno Van Obbergen and Bernard De Vos, and many academics, specialised in law and criminology, as LINC that devotes an academic web page to the subject.
Only later, I discovered all Attorney-Generals of Belgium had made unanimously, exactly the same point, and I was glad to publish it their well hidden advice.
It is very remarkable that the Government pushed the new MAS-law through Parliament in the urgency-procedure, which limited the advice of the Council of State to formalities. However, the failure of the Government’s legal project in guaranteeing a minimum of independence to the MAS-sanctioning city official was so flagrant the Council of State pointed at this blatant lack.
(...)
One of the most flagrant abuses concerned thousands of MAS-fines, decided by officials who were not even entitled to do so, because they were part of inter-city-agreements that in the best of any legal hypothesis were only allowed since October 3rd 2013. But no jurisprudence could halt them: the “independent” city officials did not listen for the very simple reason their mayors did not want to, even not after the strongest warnings of the very official (and pro-MAS) VVSG, the Flemish Union of Cities and Municipalities.
Of course, after being fined by this “independent’ #MAS-sanctioning city official, you may want to try your case in a real court.
Not so simple. Although this concerns penal sanctions, it is legally designed as a civil procedure (although in the Police Court, but the Civil, and not the Penal Chambers of it), where the papers of procedure build a huge barrier only 1 out of 1000 plaintiffs even try to pass. This procedure is inaptly called an “appeal” although it is the first glance at the case by an independent judge.
If citizens do not succeed, they have to pay on the top of the MAS-fine the costs of the city lawyer à €1.320 (legal forfait) on top of the costs à €40 they already had to pay at the Police Court to get the case notified.
As Latin seems to become the new Flemish language in justice, let’s call this ‘timor litis’: scare people the guts out of their rights. It will learn them never to dare to court again...
SO, AS WE COULD PREDICT FROM THE LEGAL DNA OF #MAS, THE PROOF IS ALREADY IN THE PUDDING: THE RIGHTS OF RESISTANCE, PROTEST, AND ORGANISATION ARE IN CRITICAL DANGER
When the system does not stand up to the test of the Rule of Law, abuse, arbitrairness and discrimination is the inevitable consequence.
(...)
But it is my firm conviction that MAS-sanctions are in fact MASS-sanctions against free speech and democracy. Quite in the tradition of La Loi 78 au Quebec, also known as la Loi Matraque.
It is no wonder this infamous MAS-law here, is under attack at the Belgian Constitutional Court on demand of the League for Human Rights, the Coalition for Children’s Rights, and the two biggest syndicates.
Je finirai donc en français, et pas par hasard. Comme au Quebec, avec l’appui de la jeune génération, nous arrêterons cette dérive: au Nom de la Loi, non à la MAStraque.”
For the complete text of the presentation, including 10 cases of abuse, often sanctioned by the Police Courts: CLICK HERE.
A resolution was proposed for the General Assembly as follows:
The IADL Congress,
Condemns the principle and practice of #MAS (Municipal Administrative Sanctions) in Belgium citing in particular:
- the lack of any guarantee by law for independence in the statute of the MAS-sanctioning city official, inevitably leading to political misuse;
- the arbitrary range of intimidating sanctions, de facto used in particular against the young, the poor and minorities;
- the use of MAS in framing, subduing and criminalizing social actions (as in Antwerp on 24 0 2011,Geneeskunde voor het volk), and the actions of labour unions (as in Genk on 31 10 2012, PVDA for Ford Genk)
-
-the ‘timor litis’ installed in a difficult and expensive civil procedure for de facto penal sanctions, leading to ‘class (in)Justice’ (NL: klassenjustitie; F: justice de classes).
Photo of the day:
MAS for the masses: citizens trapped in the #MAS police net at the end of the anti-MONSANTO-walk in Antwerp on 27 05 2013 (one of the 10 cases in my presentation to IADL Commission 5)
You Tubes of the Day:
2013 11 24 Jan Nolf: GAS-boete is repressie vermomd als preventie’
2013 11 20 ‘Kinderrechtencommissaris: nieuwe regelgeving GAS geen
2013 07 09 ‘GAS-boete voor 1 kersenpit op de grond’ (Yahoo - Nieuws)
2013 05 31 Weekwatcher Bert Gabriels over de GAS-boetes (DS)
2013 05 29 ‘Hitler over GAS-boetes ;-)
2013 05 28 ‘Piccart: “GAS-boetes zijn een rechtstaat onwaardig”
(debat Piccart - Q in Terzake)
2013 05 25 ‘Politie pakt in #A deelnemers op van protestwandeling
2013 04 17 ‘Sanctions administratives dès 14 ans ? (RTBF)
Le substitut du Procureur de la République, Oswald Baudot
‘In nome del populo italiano’ (film Dino Risi)
Afscheid op het vredegerecht, 31 08 2011
Afscheidsinterview in Villa Vanthilt 04 08 2011
M’n rondleiding in het vredegerecht:
‘Het huis van steen en wolken’
Mijn Opinies & interviews over #GAS:
klik hier voor de link naar de #GAS pagina
Wat u vast niet gemist hebt - Ce que vous n’avez certainement
pas râté - You didn’t miss this one did you ???
2014 04 08 ‘Kritiek op Gentse aanpak van jonge criminelen’ (Het Nieuwsblad)
2014 04 07 Lezing Kinderrechtencommissaris Bruno Vanobbergen op trefdag GAS Gent.
2014 04 03 ‘Gemeenten durven minder GAS-boetes geven in aanloop naar verkiezingen‘ (quotes in Knack)
2014 03 31 ‘De haat-liefde-verhouding met justitie’ (Opinie op VRTDeRedactie voor #FOTO14)
2014 02 07 ‘Parket zet Pieter De Crem in zijn hemd: geen oorlog voor 233,86 €’ (verslag op Knack.be)
GAS-debat op #7Dag De Zevende Dag).
A quote a day, keeps the doctor away:
“Men moet zich voorstellen dat een Correctionele Rechtbank of een andere strafrechter, na kennis te hebben genomen van het dossier en van het verweer van de “beklaagde” eens telefoneert naar één of meer verbalisanten om te horen wat die van het verweer denken… Men moet zich voorstellen dat een Correctionele Rechtbank of een andere strafrechter het ontwerp van “vonnis” doormailt naar de verbalisanten en/of de Procureur des Konings met de vraag opmerkingen en aanvullingen te bezorgen… Men moet zich voorstellen dat de strafrechter zijn uiteindelijke beslissing onder meer motiveert aan de hand van wat een verbalisant of een wijkagent hem aan de telefoon heeft gezegd… Strafpleitend Vlaanderen zou op zijn kop staan… Maar een administratie mag dat blijkbaar allemaal en hoeft zich van rechten van verdediging blijkbaar helemaal niets aan te trekken…”
Motivering vonnis politierechtbank Brugge op 10 05 2012 in zaak AR 12A76, waarbij GAS-boete van sanctieambtenaar Oostkamp vernietigd wordt wegens inbreuk op rechten verdediging.
Over datzelfde (in de professionele juridische pers niet gepubliceerde) vonnis: lees Opinie #justitiewatcher in Knack op 20 09 2013 (link hier).
“Ach, ik weet waar het vandaan komt hoor. Enkele maanden geleden zaten we samen in De Zevende Dag. Hij (Jan Nolf) verdedigde daar de GAS-boetes, ik was tegen. (...)”.
Burgemeester Eddie De Block in De Morgen, 22 02 2014 p. 11. Voor link naar De Zevende Dag 24 11 2013, klik hier.
Voor link naar verslag van debat 7Dag in Knack.be door hoofdredacteur Eddy Eerdekens, klik hier.
Poem of the day:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me. “
Martin Niemöller
#MAS #GAS #SAC at IADL CONGRESS
16 april 2014
“MAS reflects for a large public the fundamental injustice of the justice system: Justice where the role of the independent, impartial judge erodes and had become “a MAS-sanctions – shopping center”.
