Website to allow citizens to report obsolete laws

The parliamentary committee for legislative monitoring will, by the end of this month, set up a website where citizens can express their views on laws that should be abolished or are no longer valid or relevant, De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad report today. It is the parliamentary committee’s task to remove unnecessary or obsolete legislation, such as the 1937 law giving the King conscription powers in Congo or the obligation for a bailiff to leave someone with “a cow, or 12 goats or sheep, 24 chickens as well as straw and feed for a month”. Usually, it is the Constitutional Court and the Board of Prosecutors-General who report to the committee which laws should be repealed. Now, citizens can also indicate the laws they deem unnecessary. The site will be online at the end of April.