New Brussels prosecutor promises more cases in court

The newly appointed prosecutor of Brussels, Jean-Marc Meilleur, has promised to improve the rate of cases that go to court. Currently about 80% of all crimes and offences are processed without a suspect appearing in court, and most of those are simply shelved.

In 2013, the Brussels prosecutor’s office dealt with 116,551 cases, mainly criminal offences, including theft, assault and disruption to public order. Of those, 93,730 resulted in no charges. The percentage is constant, despite the decline of the number of offences since 2008.

In 9% of those cases, the suspect paid an administrative fine. About 5% were turned over to another jurisdiction, and 9% were joined to another case. The rest were shelved for reasons such as “suspects unknown”, “other priorities” and “inopportune to prosecute”.

Meilleur (pictured) is in charge of the new judicial area of Brussels, now split off from Halle-Vilvoorde. The above figures relate to the previous joint area. He made it clear that his goal is to double the number of cases that come to court.

“That’s good news. We’re very happy,” said Ilse Van De Keere, spokesperson for the Brussels police. The change will mean less overtime for the police, she said.

The legal profession is also not complaining, according to the head of the Dutch-speaking bar in Brussels, Hugo Vandenberghe. “We have more than 3,000 lawyers. We will be able to cope.”