“BHV has stood the test of the Constitutional Court”

The Constitutional Court has overruled an article in the law that splits the judiciary district Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. The article required both the Brussels public prosecutor and the labour judge to be French speaking, with Dutch speaking deputies.

The Order of Flemish Bars, the Dutch Order of lawyers at the Brussels bar and Flemish political parties N-VA and Vlaams Belang had appealed against not just this article, but the entire law. The Constitutional Court did not annul the article’s consequences, so the magistrates currently in function can stay on.

“With this annulment, the Constitutional Court recognises the bilingual character of Brussels, which implies that both languages are treated equally,” responded Hendrik Vuye, MP for N-VA.

“This verdict ends a series of procedures regarding the constitutionality of the BHV split, all of which have remained without result,” said Servais Verherstraeten (CD&V), parting secretary of state for institutional reform. Earlier, there were procedures against the split of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde constituency and about the mayors’ lack of respect for the language laws in the Flemish periphery around Brussels.