Tag: Crimes against humanity

L., M. et al. v Kingdom of Belgium

On By In Court of Appeal
Brussels Court of Appeal, L., M. et al. v Kingdom of Belgium, Nr. 2022/AR/262, 2 December 2024

This judgment overturns an earlier ruling of the Brussels First Instance Tribunal of 8 December 2021 (see here), in which the Tribunal rejected the claims for compensation against the Belgian State, lodged by five individuals of Congolese descent who had been forcibly removed from their mothers as children and placed in religious institutes on account of their mixed-race parentage between 1948 and 1961. The Court of Appeal overturned the judgement of the First Instance Tribunal on two fundamental grounds.

Firstly, with regard to the principle of legality, the Tribunal at first instance had held that, at the time the acts were committed, they did not yet qualify as crimes against humanity. The Court of Appeal rejected this reasoning. Relying on the Statute of the Nuremberg Tribunal, and UNGA resolution 95(I) of 1946, the Court held that the crime of humanity was recognized as an offence by the international community as of 1946. Further, notwithstanding the specific competence of the Nuremberg Tribunal, it was not confined to acts committed in situations of armed conflict. The fact that practices of racial segregation were not limited to Belgium at the time, and may have been institutionalized, moreover did not alter the fact that the abduction of young children solely for racial reasons qualified as a crime against humanity.

Secondly, concerning the issue of prescription, the First Instance Tribunal had found that the case was time-barred. This conclusion was also overturned on appeal. Since the acts were now qualified as crimes against humanity (offences that are not subject to statutory limitation) the Court of Appeal indeed held that prescription could not serve as a ground to bar the proceedings.

In the end, the Belgian government was ordered to pay EUR 50.000 compensation to each of the five “enfants métis” (increased with compensatory interest).

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Prosecutor v former Guatemalan State officials

On By In Assize Court
Leuven Assize Court, Prosecutor v former Guatemalan State officials, Nr. FD30.98.000213-03, 14 December 2023

On 14 December 2023, the Assize Court of Flemish Brabant convicted in absentia five former high-ranking military and political leaders from Guatemala and sentenced them to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity committed against four Flemish missionaries.

The Court established that the killings formed part of a “widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population,” within the meaning of Article 7(1)(a) of the Rome Statute, to which Article 136ter of the Belgian Criminal Code refers. It situated these acts within the broader context of the Guatemalan civil war (1960–1996), noting that the facts at issue were committed between 1980 and 1982. During this protracted conflict, large numbers of civilians were subjected to grave human rights violations, including abductions, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances. Against this background, the Court concluded that the murders were not isolated acts but part of a larger pattern of violence, thereby qualifying them as crimes against humanity. This classification was also significant from a procedural standpoint, as such international crimes are not subject to statutes of limitation and are therefore imprescriptible.

With regard to the mode of liability, the Court relied, inter alia, on the doctrine of “Joint Criminal Enterprise” (JCE), reportedly for the first time in Belgian legal practice. Under this mode of liability, all participants in a collective criminal plan (regardless of their rank or level of direct involvement) can be held equally responsible for crimes committed in furtherance of the common purpose. By applying this doctrine, the Court attributed responsibility to the accused not only for their own actions but also for the acts carried out by others within the framework of the shared criminal enterprise.

All five accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, reflecting both the gravity of the crimes and their central role in the underlying criminal conduct.

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L., M. et al. v Kingdom of Belgium

On By In First Instance Tribunal
Brussels First Instance Tribunal, L., M. et al. v Kingdom of Belgium, Nr. 20/4655/A, 8 December 2021

This case revolves around a claim issued by 5 people with Congolese roots against the Belgian state in connection with Belgium’s colonial past in Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All claimants had been committed into a religious institute and hence separated from their family as children between 1948 and 1961. At the time, placing Métis (mixed-race parentage) children  in religious institutes was routine practice. The claimants’ position that this segregation epitomized a crime against humanity, based on which they were entitled to compensation, was, however, held to be unfounded. Having regard to the principle of legality, the Tribunal rather found that the placement of people in such religious institutions for racial reasons did not amount to a crime against humanity at the time. Acknowledging that the concept of crimes against humanity had gradually broadened over time, however, the court added that if these actions were to occur today, they would likely be seen as such.

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