Open AccessThe French heritage put to the test of time: history of criminal procedure in Belgium (1814-2020)
Author(s) -
Edouard Delrée
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
revista brasileira de direito processual penal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 2525-510X
pISSN - 2359-3881
DOI - 10.22197/rbdpp.v7i2.602
Subject(s) - code (set theory) , law , economic justice , political science , criminal justice , test (biology) , criminal code , sociology , history , criminology , criminal law , computer science , paleontology , set (abstract data type) , biology , programming language
The history of Belgium’s criminal procedure is deeply related to its French heritage through its Code d’instruction criminelle of 1808 still in force nowadays. In order to portray the modern history of Belgium’s criminal procedure, this paper aims at emphasizing the evolution of the reform initiatives regarding the most symbolic aspects inherited from the French procedure: the Code of 1808 itself, the pretrial investigation focused on the juge d’instruction’s person and the emblematic popular justice of the cour d’assises. Divided into six periods from 1814 to 2020, this historical research will address and contextualize issues such as the replacement or the maintaining of the French Code, the improvement of the instruction according to its Napoleonic main features or its transformation into another type of pretrial investigation as well as the limitation or even the abolition of popular justice.