The Federal Government has announced that the process of communicating the rights of arrested people by the police will be simplified and rolled out across Belgium starting from 2024.
The current declaration of rights communicated by the police – informing the arrested person of the fact they have the right to remain silent, to an interpreter, or to medical assistance, and more – was introduced in 2016, but was not always clear to suspects as it was communicated in a four-page document.
"A general principle of law is that everyone is supposed to know the law, but we all know that this is not the case in practice," said Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne. "It is up to the judiciary and police to explain people’s rights clearly, in simple language."
The declaration has now been reworked into a simpler and more understandable document. As part of this shift, magistrates, police officers, lawyers, and NGOs scrutinised letters sent to citizens and drafted them with a focus on using clear and simple language. "This revision of the Letter of Rights is also part of that project," Van Quickenborne explained.
While the content of the Letter of Rights remains unchanged and corresponds to what the law states, the format and presentation have been adjusted.
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The police zones of Brussels North, the Namur Capitale and the Limburg Region Capital will start working with the new model, which will become available in 52 languages as a pilot project starting in October 2023. From 2024, every police zone must use this new model.
"By showing and explaining those rights in a very clear and simple way, we guarantee citizens’ rights to the maximum," Van Quickenborne added.
"Every small step towards a more understandable legal language has a big impact on everything that follows later in legal proceedings," Raf Van Ransbeeck, director of the Institute for Judicial Training, said.
