Two years ago, Belgium was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the Boutaffala case for its judges’ undue emphasis on police statements in cases involving police violence, according to the Belgian Human Rights League (LDH), who now claim "that little has changed" since then.
Khaled Boutaffala, the director of Schaerbeek youth service AtMOsphères was a victim to police violence in 2009 on the streets of Saint-Gilles in Brussels when he was on his way back from work.
The involved police officers later prosecuted him for resisting arrest – something he denied – and was found guilty in the Belgian courts.
However, with the help of the LDH, Boutaffala took the case to the ECHR who ruled the lawyer did not have a fair trial, highlighting that the court was disproportionately influenced by police testimony.
Although the Belgian Government relayed lessons learnt from the case to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in October, the LDH asserts no actual progress has been made since then.
This belief was rooted in an analysis of three recent affairs (2023 and 2024), where individuals were successfully prosecuted for rebellion, primarily on the basis of police testimony, even when these officers were involved.
According to the LDH, the ECHR’s verdict clearly stated that when the prosecution’s claims are contested and the involved officers are the primary witnesses, it is vital for all reasonable steps to be taken to validate officers’ statements.
Consequently, the LDH has called on the Committee of Ministers not to conclude supervision of this verdict. It has also urged the Belgian state to display this verdict more prominently, learn and implement its lessons in the education of magistrates, and compile files involving those being prosecuted for rebellion who reported police violence.
Finally, the LDH advocated for the removal of rebellion as a punishable offence in the penal code, arguing that other laws already cover these acts.
