Judgments

Although the public service provided by the courts must be accessible equally to everyone, the Judicial Code establishes differentiated treatment, based solely on income.While it is reasonable and permissible that the grant of legal aid should be conditional on the verification of income and a brief verification of whether the applicant has made out a prima facie case for the procedure for which he seeks legal aid, on the other hand the requirement for an inter partes hearing and an attempt at conciliation, and therefore the presence of the opposing party in the procedure for obtaining legal aid, do not present a reasonable relationship of proportionality with the aim pursued.That disproportion is even more fundamental where, as in this case, legal aid is sought with a view to initiating proceedings by means of an ex parte application.

Applicants who rely on their capacity as married men or fathers, and an association which protects human life, have a legitimate interest in seeking annulment of the law decriminalising the termination of pregnancy under certain conditions.Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution (before 1994 Article 6 and 6bis) do not in themselves establish that a human being benefits from the time of conception from the protection against discrimination which they guarantee.It cannot be inferred from the provisions of international conventions on which the parties rely that the Belgian State's accession to those conventions gives rise to a constitutional guarantee that the same rights will be granted to living persons and to unborn children. Although the obligation to respect life requires the legislature also to adopt measures to protect the unborn life, it cannot be inferred that the legislature is under an obligation, on pain of violating Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution, to treat the born child and the unborn child in the same way.The right of the husband or the father to equal treatment as regards respect for his private and family life and the right to marry and found a family cannot be interpreted as being sufficiently broad as to include the procedural rights on which the applicants rely, namely the right for a man to be consulted and also the right to bring court proceedings where his wife demonstrates the intention to terminate her pregnancy.

The Court of Arbitration has jurisdiction to review laws assenting to international treaties or conventions, whether in the context of an action for annulment or in response to preliminary questions referred by the courts (see Supplementary Information for the amendment, by the Special Law of 9 March 2003, of the Court's jurisdiction in such matters).Review of the constitutionality of the law assenting to an international convention (which merely proclaims that the provisions of the convention "shall produce their full and entire effect") also implies an examination of the content of the relevant provisions of the international instrument concerned. In carrying out its review, the Court must take into account that in this case the measure under review is not a unilateral sovereign act but a convention that also produces legal effects outside the domestic order.

Courts are not required to ask the Court of Arbitration for a preliminary ruling if the Court has already ruled on a question or appeal on the same subject-matter. If, however, the courts do request a preliminary ruling on the same question, the Court of Arbitration can adopt a shortened form of procedure and hand down an "immediate response decision".

In continuing to enforce, on a transitional basis, a provision of the Civil Code which deprives natural children of their inheritance rights even after a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights declaring Belgium to be guilty of breaching Article 8 ECHR in conjunction with Article 14 ECHR (Judgment in the case of Marckx v. Belgium of 13 June 1979, Special Bulletin Leading Cases ECHR [ECH-1979-S-002]), the legislature violates the constitutional principles of equality and non-discrimination (Articles 6 and 6bis of the former Constitution, now (since 1994) Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution).

Non-profit-making associations which bring an action against a law affecting their social purpose and which rely on a collective moral interest establish the necessary interest to ask the Court to annul that law.The constitutional rules of equality and non-discrimination (Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution, before 1994 Article 6 and 6bis) are applicable with respect to all the rights and all the freedoms recognised to Belgians.A legislative provision whose purpose is, first, to render lawful a royal decree after it has been held to be unlawful by a decision of the Council of State and, second, to prevent the Council of State from ruling on the possible unlawfulness of another royal decree the implementation of which it had suspended violates the principle of equality and non-discrimination (Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution) in that it deprives the applicants and the category of citizens to which those decrees apply of a judicial guarantee essential for all citizens, without there being any justification for that difference in treatment.