The force of law of decree-laws in Belgium during and after the First World War

Abstract

When Belgium was overrun by Germany in 1914 neither the Belgian constitutional legislator, nor the Belgian legislator had determined how the police powers of the civil authorities could be transferred to the military authorities in the case of a war. Article 130 of the Constitution determined that the Constitution and the constitutional rights and freedoms it provided could never be suspended wholly or in part. This created a problem. There were several statutes which provided merely a limited answer for some situations. When Belgian military authorities instead of civil authorities took measures which invaded upon constitutional rights, disputes arose. In order to avoid these, the Belgian King enacted the decree-law concerning the state of war and the state of siege on 11 October 1916. Many provisions of this decree-law had been taken from the French war laws of 9 August 1849 and 4 April 1878, but – contrary to these French laws – the Belgian decree-law was not based on a formal constitutional stipulation. This decree-law, which contravened the Belgian Constitution of 7 February 1831 and the fundamental rights and freedoms which were safeguarded by this Constitution in several respects, made it possible to take a number of measures during the state of war and the state of siege. As soon as these different provisions were applied, several citizens protested against them. Their protest was mainly aimed at the force of ‘law’ of the decree-law of 11 October 1916 and all of the other decree-laws. The rest of this contribution will detail when and why this protest took place, as well as how the Belgian administration of justice dealt with this protest.