Court of Arbitration of Belgium

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The Court of Arbitration of Belgium plays a central role within the federal Belgian state.

This is a judicial court founded in 1980. Its jurisdiction was augmented in 1988 and 2003.

The Court of Arbitration owes its existence to the development of the Belgian unitary state into a federal state. The name that has been given to the Court already says a lot about its mission, which is to supervise the observance of the constitutional division of powers between the federal state, the communities and the regions.

The Court of Arbitration was officially inaugurated in the Belgian Senate on 1 October 1984. On 5 April 1985 it delivered its first judgment.

Since 1988, the Court is also responsible for supervising the application of some particular articles of the Belgian constitution, e.g. the principles of equality, non-discrimination and the rights and liberties in respect of education (the Articles 10, 11 and 24 of the Belgian constitution). With a Special law of 2003, this competence was expanded to the Section II (Articles 8 to 32), and the Articles 170, 172 and 191 of the Belgian Constitution. The Court is therefore developing into a constitutional court.

The court has two modi operandi. Each stakeholder can within 60 days of publication of a law, decree or ordinance go to the Court in order to have the law, decree or ordinance annulled because of a breach of the aforementioned Articles of the Belgian Constitution or because of a breach of the division of powers between the federal state, the communities and the regions. When the Court decides to annul a law, decree or ordinance it counts erga omnes, for all persons.

The second modus operandus of the court are the prelilminary issues. If a question comes up in a particular tribunal about the correspondence of laws, decrees and ordinances with the rules laying down the division of powers between the State, the communities and the regions or with Articles 8 to 32, 170, 172 or 191 of the Constitution, that tribunal must address a preliminary question to the Court of Arbitration as the Court has the exclusive competence of interpreting the Constitution and the competence dividing rules. When the Court finds a breach of these articles, it will pronounce its decision inter partes, meaning the ruling has only effect between the parties of the specific case. Such judgement however has great moral value and will force the parliament which made the targeted law, decree or ordinance in question to amend it.

1 Judges
- 1.1 Composition
- 1.2 Judges' background
2 See also
3 External links

[edit] Judges

The Court of Arbitration is composed of 12 judges (6 Dutch and 6 French speakers, one of them must have an adequate knowledge of German) appointed for their lifetime by the King (in person of the federal government) within a list of candidates provided by the federal parliament. The list to fill a vacancy contains two candidates proposed alternately by the House of Representatives and the Senate by a majority of at least two-thirds of the members present. Each linguistic group is composed of three judges with a legal background and three judges who have had at least five years experience as members of parliament. Candidates must be at least forty years of age. The judges may hold office until they reach seventy years of age, when they retire from the bench.

[edit] Composition

The Court is currently composed as follows:

French linguistic group:	Dutch linguistic group:
Michel Melchior, President Paul Martens Roger Henneuse Jean-Paul Snappe Jean-Paul Moerman Jean Spreutels	Alex Arts, President Marc Bossuyt Etienne De Groot Luc Lavryssen baron André Alen Erik Derycke