The Federal Institute of Human Rights (FIRM) will watch over the rights of people who are deprived of their freedom. The Council of Ministers has approved a bill by Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld) for this on Friday. Our country had already committed itself to this in 2005, but the practical implementation took a long time to materialise.
The undertaking entailed that Belgium would develop a mechanism for preventive surveillance of persons deprived of their liberty who are in so-called places of deprivation of liberty. At the federal level, these include prisons, police cells and detention centers for migrants.
The protocol to which our country adhered already entered into force in 2006. It took until 2018 for the Chamber to pass a law to appoint a watchdog for the rights of those incarcerated, but it was still a matter of who should carry out that supervision and how that would happen.
The draft by Minister Van Quickenborne places the authority with the FIRM, which was established in 2019 and is financed by the House. It is mandated to examine the situation of persons deprived of their liberty at regular intervals through preventive visits, to formulate recommendations to the competent authorities and to formulate proposals for legislation and its compatibility with international standards.
To this end, the FIRM will cooperate with the specialized institutions that already exercise a certain form of supervision. These are Committee P with regard to police cells, the Central Supervisory Council for the Prison System with regard to prisons, Myria with regard to detention centers for foreigners and UNIA with regard to persons with disabilities who have been deprived of their liberty.
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