Stubborn traffic offenders sometimes abuse language laws to delay their sentences. The problem is said to occur mainly with French speakers in the Halle-Vilvoorde district. So reports Flemish MP Jeroen Tiebout (N-VA) and also confirms Ine Van Wymersch, prosecutor of the Halle-Vilvoorde public prosecutor’s office. “It is a risk for road safety,” she said.
The language in which someone is tried is determined by language laws. Normally, a trial is held in the language spoken at the place where the offence occurred. However, you may request that your trial occur in another official national language. Thus, a French-speaking traffic offender tried in Flanders may ask for the trial to be conducted in French and vice versa.
In practice, this means that the file must be translated in full and the offender must appear before a court in the other language. And that, according to Tiebout, is a problem. “Translating a file takes a lot of time and, moreover, French-speaking courts have a greater legal backlog,” he says. “It is a risk for road safety, because the judge cannot impose any measure when applying for such a language change,” says Van Wymersch.
Specifically, an offender cannot, for example, be given a (temporary) driving ban pending the translation of the integral file and the new hearing before a judge in the other language. “In essence, someone is entering the road where we know they have committed offences and are hard-learners,” says the prosecutor. “I don’t want to come here and explain how it is that someone has hit a child who we know is a road safety hazard.”
According to Tiebout, the system is particularly abused in Halle-Vilvoorde. “I don’t have any figures myself,” he admitted, though, “but I hear from the police services that this really is a big problem.” Prosecutor Van Wymersch confirms the problem. “In a large proportion of files, a language change is requested,” she says. Although she stresses that this order of magnitude only applies to her district. “Outside the region, that number is lower.”
And those requests for language changes are far from always really necessary, according to her. “People who still understood perfect Dutch during their interrogation suddenly lose it completely at the hearing and ask for a language change,” the prosecutor says about this. “For non-native speakers, we provide an interpreter, but that is not sufficient for the language law.”The issue is not new. In May last year, Van Wymersch already raised the abuses. N-VA MP Wouter Raskin now hopes to change the language law so that an interpreter is also sufficient for the official national languages. He wants to submit a bill to that effect in the House of Representatives. That change will not be obvious, because to amend that legislation requires a two-thirds majority and a majority in both language groups.
*In an earlier version of this article, Van Wymersch said that a language change was requested in about half of the files. She has since indicated that this was a slip of the tongue and she meant “in many cases”. We have amended the article accordingly.*
>hopes to change the language law so that an interpreter is also sufficient for the official national languages
Dear Wouter, this was the case in Belgium a long time ago. It was because of the Flemish movement, of which N-VA is by far the largest descendant, that this model was rejected and that defendants got to choose one of three official languages. You want to do the exact same thing that you supposedly fought against a hundred years ago.
Also he can call it language abuse all he wants, Halle and Vilvoorde have a very large French speaking population. It makes sense that they feel more comfortable speaking French to a judge. N-VA can try to hide their existence behind arbitrary language laws all they want, but those people live there and international observers sent by the Council of Europe and EU have determined their existence decades ago already because of Brusselse Rand shenanigans.
>because to amend that legislation requires a two-thirds majority and a majority in both language groups
Yeah good luck with that. The constitutional court and EU will have a field day with this if they are stupid enough to bring this to media attention.
TL,DR:
– after causing and accident, you get to keep driving as you always were until a judge makes a ruling
– you delay the ruling by requesting (in bad faith) all court documents get translated and transferred to a court of the other language
– the French courts have a greater backlog than the Dutch courts so a French transgressor in the officially Dutch areas around Brussels gets the most ‘extra’ time
4 comments
Stubborn traffic offenders sometimes abuse language laws to delay their sentences. The problem is said to occur mainly with French speakers in the Halle-Vilvoorde district. So reports Flemish MP Jeroen Tiebout (N-VA) and also confirms Ine Van Wymersch, prosecutor of the Halle-Vilvoorde public prosecutor’s office. “It is a risk for road safety,” she said.
The language in which someone is tried is determined by language laws. Normally, a trial is held in the language spoken at the place where the offence occurred. However, you may request that your trial occur in another official national language. Thus, a French-speaking traffic offender tried in Flanders may ask for the trial to be conducted in French and vice versa.
In practice, this means that the file must be translated in full and the offender must appear before a court in the other language. And that, according to Tiebout, is a problem. “Translating a file takes a lot of time and, moreover, French-speaking courts have a greater legal backlog,” he says. “It is a risk for road safety, because the judge cannot impose any measure when applying for such a language change,” says Van Wymersch.
Specifically, an offender cannot, for example, be given a (temporary) driving ban pending the translation of the integral file and the new hearing before a judge in the other language. “In essence, someone is entering the road where we know they have committed offences and are hard-learners,” says the prosecutor. “I don’t want to come here and explain how it is that someone has hit a child who we know is a road safety hazard.”
According to Tiebout, the system is particularly abused in Halle-Vilvoorde. “I don’t have any figures myself,” he admitted, though, “but I hear from the police services that this really is a big problem.” Prosecutor Van Wymersch confirms the problem. “In a large proportion of files, a language change is requested,” she says. Although she stresses that this order of magnitude only applies to her district. “Outside the region, that number is lower.”
And those requests for language changes are far from always really necessary, according to her. “People who still understood perfect Dutch during their interrogation suddenly lose it completely at the hearing and ask for a language change,” the prosecutor says about this. “For non-native speakers, we provide an interpreter, but that is not sufficient for the language law.”The issue is not new. In May last year, Van Wymersch already raised the abuses. N-VA MP Wouter Raskin now hopes to change the language law so that an interpreter is also sufficient for the official national languages. He wants to submit a bill to that effect in the House of Representatives. That change will not be obvious, because to amend that legislation requires a two-thirds majority and a majority in both language groups.
*In an earlier version of this article, Van Wymersch said that a language change was requested in about half of the files. She has since indicated that this was a slip of the tongue and she meant “in many cases”. We have amended the article accordingly.*
Translated with [www.DeepL.com/Translator](http://www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)
Of course this comes from N-VA.
>hopes to change the language law so that an interpreter is also sufficient for the official national languages
Dear Wouter, this was the case in Belgium a long time ago. It was because of the Flemish movement, of which N-VA is by far the largest descendant, that this model was rejected and that defendants got to choose one of three official languages. You want to do the exact same thing that you supposedly fought against a hundred years ago.
Also he can call it language abuse all he wants, Halle and Vilvoorde have a very large French speaking population. It makes sense that they feel more comfortable speaking French to a judge. N-VA can try to hide their existence behind arbitrary language laws all they want, but those people live there and international observers sent by the Council of Europe and EU have determined their existence decades ago already because of Brusselse Rand shenanigans.
>because to amend that legislation requires a two-thirds majority and a majority in both language groups
Yeah good luck with that. The constitutional court and EU will have a field day with this if they are stupid enough to bring this to media attention.
TL,DR:
– after causing and accident, you get to keep driving as you always were until a judge makes a ruling
– you delay the ruling by requesting (in bad faith) all court documents get translated and transferred to a court of the other language
– the French courts have a greater backlog than the Dutch courts so a French transgressor in the officially Dutch areas around Brussels gets the most ‘extra’ time
Is this actually an issue?