The Brussels Court of Appeal confirmed, on Monday, the decision rendered in first instance on the subject of strip searches with genuflections, imposed on the defendants detained in the trial of the attacks of March 22, 2016. These are illegal. The Belgian State is enjoined to put an end to this practice, deemed contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. The fitting of blinding glasses is no longer permitted except in a limited manner.
The court ruled in summary proceedings, like the first judge, and declared the Belgian State’s appeal against the order issued by this first judge unfounded. The latter had established that the strip searches with genuflection to which the defendants are subjected before their transfer from the prison to the Justitia, where the trial takes place, could not be systematically imposed on them without valid reason. They had to be justified by serious indications of a danger of escape or attack.
The court went further. She believes that the practice is completely illegal. “She decides that the genuflections that are imposed [aux accusés] during the body searches carried out by the officers of the judicial police when they are transferred to the Justitia are not provided for by the law of 5 August 1992 on the police function, invoked by the Belgian State“, explained in a press release judge Anne Leclercq, spokesperson for the court of appeal.
“The court therefore orders the Belgian State to put an end to this practice, which is contrary to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.“, she continued.
The court also considers that the fitting of blinding glasses is clearly not reasonably justified outside the transfers of the accused to Justitia and on their return to prison and it therefore prohibits imposing the fitting of these blinding glasses on other times.