A judge from the Ghent Correctional Court, who faced a request for recusal by Walter Van Steenbrugge - lawyer for three individuals suing author Herman Brusselmans for an article in the Humo weekly – has recused himself from the case.
The case will now be reassigned to another judge, since the recused judge had previously acquitted Brusselmans in a different lawsuit.
An article by Herman Brusselmans, published on 6 August 2024 in Humo, had sparked outrage within the Jewish community.
The first direct summons against the author came from the Jewish Information and Documentation Centre (JID), which accused Brusselmans of breaching anti-racism, anti-discrimination, and Holocaust denial laws with his writings.
However, on 11 March, the correctional court acquitted Brusselmans of these charges.
A second lawsuit was filed by three members of the Jewish community who delved further into Brusselmans’ work. “This is not just about one article,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Walter Van Steenbrugge, said when filing the complaint on 4 February.
The court decided to impose deadlines for submitting conclusions in the second case and scheduled a hearing for 6 May.
“In splitting the files, my clients’ rights were violated. My clients’ suit is identical to the first,” Van Steenbrugge had said in February.
