Following the seizure and auctioning of government furniture, one law firm has taken its fight against Belgium's failure to shelter asylum seekers a step further by seizing large amounts of money from the State's bank account.
Thousands of asylum seekers have been refused the shelter they are legally entitled to since October 2021 due to what civil society organisations have called "political unwillingness" to provide them with a roof over their heads. Both the State and Belgium's agency for asylum reception, Fedasil, have been convicted more than 9,000 times by the labour court because of this situation.
These court rulings are accompanied by fines to ensure that they are enforced. However, the Belgian State has repeatedly refused to pay the penalties or enforce the rulings, resulting in an outcry from the legal sector and academics who criticised the flagrant disregard for the rule of law.
Faced with the refusal to either pay up or provide shelter, asylum seekers' lawyers have since last year taken other legal action, including seizing furniture and other property from Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and the Secretary of State for Migration Nicole de Moor.
One law firm representing asylum seekers, Progress Lawyers Network, has gone further. It carried out a seizure of the Belgian State's bank guarantees, blocking €400,000 to pay the penalty payments to asylum seekers who were denied reception, Emmanuel Plasschaert of the French-speaking Bar Association in Brussels confirmed.
"The French Bar Association deplores the fact that it has come to this and reiterates its repeated calls for the government to comply fully with court rulings on the reception of asylum seekers and with the Reception Act," he noted.
'Cost more than bringing in'
The Belgian Government has appealed the move with the attachment judge, who will have to rule on the case. The case will be argued in court in May.
"If these actions are not sufficient to ensure compliance with court rulings, other similar seizures could take place in the future," concluded Plasschaert.
De Moor noted that there are still not enough sheltered places for the current demand, despite the "enormous efforts" made to create additional spots, but told Belga News Agency that "legal proceedings and seizures don't bring us one millimetre closer to having enough shelters. On the contrary, they cost more than they bring in".
However, civil society organisations on the ground have argued that the State is not doing everything in its power to solve the crisis. For example, the dispersal plan provided for in national law that would see every municipality having to provide shelter to a certain number of people is the only way to solve the crisis.
