Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt wants stricter action against repeat offenders.
Flanders –
The infamous GAS fines threaten to put an end to the justice system’s plans to tackle recidivism or repetition of criminal offenses much more severely. Rode? The judiciary does not always appear to be well informed about who has already received a GAS fine and for what purpose.
Thursday January 18, 2024 at 6:06 PM
The justice department has been preparing a much stricter approach to those who reoffend for some time. The intention is that anyone who commits a number of crimes – such as shoplifting – in quick succession will be dealt with much more severely. However, the circular, which has been anticipated for some time, has been significantly delayed.
And according to Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD), this has to do with, among other things, the so-called Municipal Administrative Sanctions (GAS). These are very popular in Flanders, but ensure that “justice misses quite a bit of information”, according to the minister. Information that is needed to quickly determine recidivism or recurrence among perpetrators.
Staff shortage
The hotly debated GAS system allows municipalities, among other things, to handle minor correctional crimes themselves – after consultation with the judiciary. Think of minor shoplifting, but also a case of vandalism. They are called mixed infringements.
Advantage: the perpetrator is effectively punished through a fine, while in the past the justice system could not always prosecute the perpetrators of such ‘minor’ crimes due to insufficient staff. But the disadvantage: because municipalities handle these mixed offenses themselves, the Justice Department does not always have a correct and up-to-date picture of which perpetrators have been caught before, and how they were effectively punished. This varies considerably between municipalities. “Which makes it particularly difficult to determine recidivism for these infringements,” Van Tigchelt said in Parliament.
Minister Paul Van Tigchelt criticizes the fact that issued GAS fines are not included in the justice database. — © BELGA
Van Tigchelt is also concerned about the “geographical differences” or the difference in treatment that this may cause. Consider a region where there is a well-oiled system of GAS fines for these mixed infringements, compared to a municipality that hardly or does not apply this. According to Van Tigchelt, the Board of Procurators General is therefore asking for “several of these mixed offenses to be brought back under criminal law”, so that “all information is once again available at the level of the public prosecutor’s office”. Which again ensures a coherent and uniform criminal policy.
Speeding fines
Apart from the above discussion, this problem also occurs with regard to minor speeding violations that municipalities are allowed to handle via a so-called GAS-5 fine. Experts, including the Flemish Mobility Council, have repeatedly warned that the justice system – which used to pass all speed fines – no longer has an accurate overview of which drivers are regularly caught. “Because there is no link between the GAS fines and the criminal justice system,” according to the Mobility Council. As a result, someone who recently collected a whole pile of GAS speeding fines is, according to the judicial databases, a driver who hardly or never makes a mistake.
Flemish Minister of Mobility Lydia Peeters (Open VLD) does not immediately see a return to the old system as far as speeding fines are concerned. The introduction of GAS fines for minor speeding violations “is in accordance with the Flemish coalition agreement”. “If the regulations need to be adjusted, there must first be a supported political decision within the Flemish government.”