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Belgium: Report on
legal aid for detainees
 NOVEMBER
19 - A new report on detention published by a Belgian NGO
coalition stresses that all detainees must be have access to
good quality legal aid and counsel while in closed detention
centres.
The report, entitled ‘Asserting Rights in Closed Centres’,
states that in order to augment legal service in closed centres,
“detainees must get information on their individual cases
clearly and rapidly. If they do not understand this information,
it is up to the social service at the centre to help them
understand”.
The report goes on to say that centres must send, without delay,
the details of each new detainee to a relevant lawyer, lawyers
must be better informed of the procedures in detention centres,
and lastly, each detainee must have the right to appeal their
detention order. It concludes by stating that accessing legal
aid should not be left up to detainee, but rather should be the
duty of the detention centre. “To deprive someone of his/her
liberty, should not deprive them of their most fundamental
rights”, says the report.
Currently good quality legal aid is not fully guaranteed to all
migrants and asylum seekers while in closed detention centres,
with information provided by the detention centre staff
deficient and partial. According to JRS Belgium Director,
Christophe Renders SJ, “there does not exist any fluid stream of
information from the detention centers to the lawyers. These are
not spontaneously informed over new administrative decisions,
which makes there work much more time and energy consuming.”
The report is the culmination of more than 12 months of
collaborative work by Coordination et Initiatives pour Réfugiés
et Étrangers (CIRÉ), JRS Belgium and Vluchtelingewerk Vlaanderen
(meetings were also held with a number of other Belgian NGOs in
the field). In order to complete this report consultations were
held with the directors of closed centres, lawyers and detention
centre visitors.
The compilation of the all information gathered was done by the
three aforementioned NGOs.
To see the
full report
'Faut Valoir ses
Droits en Centre Fermé'
- click here.
The report is also available in Dutch - contact
nathalie(a)jrsbelgium.org
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