Fiches Belges

Legal basis under Belgian Law: Law of 15 May 2012 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty imposed in a Member State of the European Union.

Council Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA of 27 November 2008 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty for the purpose of their enforcement in the European Union (only applicable with Member States having implemented this FD); For other Member States (and for non-EU Member States), Belgium continues to apply the European Convention of 28 May 1970 on the International Validity of Criminal Judgments the European Convention of 21 March 1983 on the transfer of sentenced person and its 1997 Additional Protocol or any existing bilateral treaty.

* receive the request/decision for judicial cooperation The competent Belgian authority for giving Belgium's prior consent for a judgment to be forwarded is the Ministry of Justice . If no prior consent from Belgium is required, the judgmentjudgment can be directly forwarded to the Public Prosecutor of Brussels. * execute/recognise the measure (if other than the receiving authority) The competent Belgian authority for recognizing and executing a judgment forwarded to Belgium (the executing authority) is the Public Prosecutor of Brussels.

The certificate should be drawn up in or translated into Dutch, French, German and English. Important remarks: Before the execution, the request will be translated by the Belgian prosecutor if the language is not the language of the judicial area where the letter of request must be executed. It is recommended, when possible, to obtain, prior to sending the request, information about the use of the correct language.

Max. 30 days for the decision of the Brussels public prosecutor on the execution of the judgment (this deadline does not include legal remedies against such decision available to the person concerned who is present on the Belgian territory ).

Dual criminality: the execution of the judgment has to be refused if the offence for which the judgment was imposed does not constitute an offence under Belgian law unless the issuing judicial authority has indicated that the offence falls within one of the 32 categories of offence for which the double criminality requirement has been withdrawn. Euthanasia and abortion authorised under Belgian law will not be considered to be covered by the category of offence “murder”.