Although Nathan Vandergunst must answer before the criminal court and the public prosecutor is asking for an appropriate sentence, his lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge is firmly in favor of release on the basis of the right to freedom of expression.
Moreover, Van Steenbrugge believes that the criminal court is not competent to judge this file. According to him, this case should go to assizes, and therefore to a people’s jury.
Van Steenbrugge made that statement during his plea, because the cases with which Vandergunst is charged are press crimes. Something that was initially created for journalists. A press offense concerns a punishable opinion in a printed or online publication, for which the author can be convicted. If it is not a racist or xenophobic statement, a popular jury in the Court of Assizes must pass judgment. A long and cumbersome procedure.
The question is whether – in this case – a scripted YouTube video is sufficient to talk about a press crime.