Belgium: Bill "targets trade unions"
01 May 1997
A Belgian lawyer has criticised draft legislation directed at organised crime claiming that it will also target trade unions as well as small political parties. Lawyer, Raf Jespers, also claims that the new legislation could make it impossible for lawyers to defend their clients.
The new bill proposed by the Belgian government aims to make membership of a criminal organisation illegal. Criminal organisations are defined in the bill as being:
"any group of two or more persons who consult together to commit crimes carrying sentences of three or more years, with the aim of profit or to influence the operations of the public or private sector, using violence, intimidation, threats or corruption and creating commercial structures to hide their crimes".
Jespers attacks this definition on the grounds that, under the new law, no crime has to be committed by any defendant. In order to succeed all the prosecution has to do is prove that the organisation of which the defendant is a member was planning to commit these crimes. Lawyers too could be targeted as the new law aims to outlaw any legal intervention which aids the operation of a criminal organisation.
Another cause of concern is that apart from criminal conspiracies "extremist political groups" are also included within the legislation. Jespers points out that state security sources indicate that this could include parties such as the left-wing "Partij van De Arbeid" as well as single-issue groups. He claims that "any group blockading an industrial estate or a trade union group that sabotages a conveyor belt" could be covered. People should also realise that "these acts do not have to committed, only contemplated".
In his view there is already more than enough legislation to tackle organised crime. "Organised crime could best be tackled by removing bank secrecy or extending the right to expose suspected money laundering, which at present has to come from senior staff in a bank, down to ordinary employees."
The new legislation proposed in Belgium shows marked similarities with earlier legislation passed in other European countries including article 140 of the Dutch criminal law which allows police to arrest and hold individuals suspected of being members of a criminal organisations for up to three days without charge (recently used against demonstrators protesting in Amsterdam against the intergovernmental conference).
The new Belgian bill's definition is similar to that in the 1997 UK Police Act, which says serious crime covers "conduct by a large number of people in pursuit of a common purpose". The same concept can be found in the report of the EU "High Level Group on organised crime" where the suggested definition of organised crime includes "behaviour of any person which contributes to the commission by a group of persons with a common purpose of one or more offences".
De Morgen, 17.5.97; Solidair, 4 & 18.6.97.upda