Cases against Belgium monitored by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers increased slightly last year, with 19 new cases compared to 14 in 2021 and 2020, according to the committee’s 2022 report on the supervision of the execution of judgments and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
By the end of 2022, Belgium still had 44 ECHR decisions to execute, compared to 37 in 2021 and 31 in 2020. Seven cases were closed under sustained supervision, compared to five in 2021 and 2020, while 14 cases are under standard supervision, the same as in 2021.
Of the cases under sustained supervision, four have been pending for five years or more, which is also the case for one of the benchmark cases under standard supervision (compared to two in 2021 and none in 2020).
The Committee of Ministers also adopted decisions on three cases or groups of cases under sustained supervision. It closed 12 cases, five of which were under standard supervision.
In particular, two cases were closed following legislative amendments: the Lachiri case, concerning freedom of religion and following the exclusion of the applicant from a courtroom for refusing to remove her veil, was thus resolved after deletion of the word “uncovered” from Article 759 of the Judicial Code.
The code had previously read: “He who attends hearings shall keep himself uncovered, respectfully and quietly.”
The other case, Bamouhammad v. Belgium, concerned the possibility for detainees to complain about certain measures while in detention.
It was closed by granting direct competence to examine appeals against decisions of the prison administration to the Complaints Committee of the Central Prison Supervision Council, which is attached to the Federal Parliament.
