Last year, more than 2 million extracts from the criminal record were delivered in our country, an absolute record. This is reported by Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld). The increase, which has been occurring for several years, is partly due to the connection of all cities and municipalities to the Central Criminal Register in 2018.
In order to exercise many professions and functions or to obtain a permit, citizens and legal entities must demonstrate that they have no judicial history. For example, someone who transports medicines or narcotics must not have been convicted of drug offenses or a customs officer must not have been convicted of excise tax fraud, illegal manufacture of alcohol or illegal transport of alcoholic beverages. A municipal councilor may not have been deprived of the right to vote by a judge or convicted of, among other things, corruption or embezzlement.
An extract of the criminal record must be requested from the city or municipality, which will consult the Central Criminal Register of the FPS Justice and deliver the extracts via e-Box. In the past, the document was issued from the municipal criminal record, but there was a chance that this information was not fully up-to-date with the information from the Central Criminal Register of the FPS Justice. That is why, since 2018, the cities and municipalities have all had direct access to the Central Criminal Register in order to be able to deliver extracts from that database.
Partly because of this, the number of extracts issued has been increasing for years. In 2020, 1.7 million extracts were delivered to citizens via the cities and municipalities. In 2017, a total of 740,000 were delivered, of which 193,000 were delivered to citizens via the cities and municipalities. Another reason for the increase is that more and more professions require a clean criminal record.
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