Arizona and Annelies Verlinden wish to make prison escapes punishable and get rid of an electronic bracelet, which is already in fact, but not in law. Judicial experts are (very) critical.
The scene is so incredible that it has gone around the world. Robin Singh, sentenced to acts of prostitution of minors, leaves the Lantin prison in the context of a transfer on January 23, 2024. Barefoot, handcuffed, he extracted from the rear bench of the police car which transports him by the window, takes his legs to his neck and sows the police officers who go to him. Robin Singh, although caught up a week later, does not risk any conviction for this escape. Belgian law does not provide for it.
Arizona, in its desire to tighten the judicial screws, intends to remedy it. As part of the Easter Agreement, the Minister of Justice Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) wrote a note describing “a global structural action plan for the fight against prison overcrowding, accompanied by emergency measures”. This one understands Several arrangements divided into three phases which should start by the summerand of which to make prison escape punishing and the fact of cutting an electronic bracelet.
For the Belgian section of the International Prisons Observatory (OIP), this is a “non-debate”, toned its president, Harold Sax. There are two conditions to be “under bracelet”. Or via parole with several conditions (including the wearing of the bracelet, of course). If these are not respected, the penalties’ application court (TAP) returns the prison in prison. Either as part of a preventive detention. In the event that the bracelet is cut, preventive detention then turns into incarceration. THE non-compliance with the conditions therefore already implies a passage through the almost automatic prison box.
Arizona, through its Minister of Justice, therefore seeks to Rectify the shooting in relation to certain vivaldi decisions. “At the end of the previous legislature, the former Minister of Justice took two emergency measures, namely the introduction of prolonged penitentiary leave (CPP) and the postponement of the start of the prison sentences less than or equal to five years (Editor’s note: finally folded in sentences under three years only)“Recalls the Verlinden cabinet. Two measures that de facto increase the use of electronic bracelets. Wever’s government therefore wants to cut the grass under the foot of the potential “bracelet breakers” by hovering the risk of a conviction.
“A motion of distrust of the judiciary”
Lawyers see this measure with a very bad eye. “Until now, Belgium was a state that protects human rights,” asserts the penalist Olivier Martins. The right to freedom takes precedence over detention and It is possible to escape for a reason considered just, and no penalty is provided if there is no degradation or violence.In 2022, only around twenty escapes took place (including 15 from the open establishments in Marneffe and Ruislede). “On the other hand, cutting your electronic bracelet or not returning to prison as part of a conditional is more frequent,” notes Yannick de Vlaemynck, lawyer at the Brussels bar.
It also happens, in rare cases, that the bracelet is cut in a case of force majeure, for reasons of health, family, professional, or that the preventive detainee does not “bipe” from his house at the expected time “because the tram which brings him back from work is delayed, for example”. In this kind of case, The judge may expand conditions in order to facilitate the reinstatement of the prisoner in the company. “Cutting your bracelet is counterproductive,” emphasizes Me de Vlaemynck. This is heavy with consequences for the future. During a request for parole, it is necessary to regain the confidence of the institution to benefit from a reclassification plan. ”
“Automating everything is almost a motion of distrust of the judiciary by telling him that he hurts his job,” deplores the president of the OIP. And to remember that Belgium is a country where preventive detention is particularly common. 36% of the prison population is in fact pending judgment, for 24.5% in the rest of Europeaccording to the Central Council for Penitentiary Surveillance and the Federal Institute for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights.
On the other side of the chain, Olivier Martins (who knows the question well, having himself made five days of preventive detention after being charged for assistantship of an escape for which he benefits from a dismissal) also deplores too firm justice. “A just sentence is an accepted and understood sentence. When we pronounce incompressible penalties, and we do not take into account the psychological change of the person, the desire for escape becomes the only obsession. ” An obsession that Arizona therefore intends to make punishable.
