I found this article in de standaard and I took it because it is related to the course. It’s about the trial of the godfather of the underworld in Belgium, Marcel Habran. He was condemned to imprisonment for the rest of his life. It was the biggest gangster trial in Belgian history.
It was very expensive. They had to reconstruct the whole crown court in Liege to maximize the security of the court. They never spend so much money on security in a trial in Belgium before. The whole trial costed between the 4 and 5 million euros.
But the highest tribunal in Belgium abolished the judgment of the crown court. The judge in the crown court decided that the jury didn’t have to motivate their verdict. The European Court Of Human Rights sais that every verdict of the jury in a crown court must be motivated. The crown court in Belgium didn’t do that, so the tribunal decided that the verdict wasn’t correct.
They have to do the trial all over again. The tribunal decided that the trial must be redone in Brussels and not in Liege with another judge and another jury. They have to spend a lot of money to secure the crown court in Brussels as well.
I think they wasted a lot of money. Because they knew that the verdict was incorrect and that it was going to be abolished, but they still continued. But it’s not only the fault of the crown court, the minister of justice made mistakes as well. He had to act sooner, so they could prevent this from happening, but he waited months to act, and that isn’t correct. I hope they learned their lesson and I hope they will be more careful in the future with the money of the taxpayer.
Jonas Hillemans 2RP2
Source: http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=802FV303&word=hof+van+assisen
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