An injection of €100 million is needed for the Belgian court system in the next State budget to ensure an "independent, accessible, efficient and timely" justice system, three national bodies have warned.
In a joint memo issued ahead of the upcoming national elections, the College of Courts and Tribunals, the College of Public Prosecutors, and the Court of Cassation have called for a spending boost to address persistent underfunding of the Belgian judicial system.
They say this would reduce the workload of judges and court clerks, continue the digital transformation of the court system, support litigants, and make the legal profession more attractive.
According to figures from the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, Belgium spent just over €1 billion on the judicial system as a whole in 2020, or around 0.22% of the country's GDP (gross domestic product). The Belgian courts highlight that this is below the average of 0.3% of GDP invested by other European countries in their justice systems.
The courts note that if Belgium wished to come in line with the European median spend on justice, the State would have to go beyond the €100 million boost which the three bodies are calling for, and plough an additional €443.5 million into the judiciary's annual budget.
An analysis of the workload of judges and court staff last year by the College of Courts and Tribunals found that they work many more hours than envisaged by law. The three arms of Belgium's judiciary stated that, to meet the current caseload, there needs to be an immediate 26% increase in the number of magistrates (officers who act as judges in lower courts) and a 19% increase in the number of court clerks.
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The memo published on Tuesday also outlines a number of key elements which the College of Courts and Tribunals, the College of Public Prosecutors and the Court of Cassation say are "essential" to a high quality legal system.
These include the mobilisation of human, material and financial resources, their involvement in decisions and ICT (information and communication technology) reforms, the attractiveness and well-being of the judiciary, and the implementation of management autonomy and data protection rules.
The three branches of the Belgian judicial system called for the next legislature to press ahead with a bill which was first negotiated between the courts and government in 2014. If enacted, this would give greater decision making power and operational independence to the judiciary.
In the same vein of autonomous management, the memo calls for the justices of the peace and police courts in Brussels to be given their own management committee, in line with elsewhere in the country.
