Former Belgian King Albert II will have to pay a fine of €5,000 for every day he refuses to undergo a court-ordered paternity test, following a ruling delivered by a Brussels court on Thursday.
The ruling, delivered by the Brussels court of appeals, struck down an appeal by the former Belgian King against a 2018 court ruling ordering him to undergo a DNA test to establish whether he was the biological father of Belgian artist and noblewoman Delphine Boël.
The court had ordered King Albert to take the paternity test within three months or be legally considered as Boël’s biological father, after a similar test taken by Boël’s paternal figure, Jacques Boël, proved the 51-year-old was not his biological daughter.
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The ruling is the latest chapter in a legal strife that has opposed the former monarch to Boël, who initiated legal proceedings to prove King Albert was her father in 2013, the same year in which the 84-year-old monarch abdicated the throne.
A separate ruling from Belgium’s Court of Cassation —the nation’s court of last resort which the monarch also appealed to— is not expected before the end of the year, according to RTBF.
Gabriela Galindo
The Brussels Times
