domains: criminal law

It is generally thought that CRIMINAL JUSTICE is mainly intended to urge people to act in conformity with the legal rules, if not they may be punished, or as students of law are taught,: “ CRIMINAL JUSTICE is an instrument of behaviour control in order to enforce behaviour according to the standards.”

The major instruments for any lawyer dealing with CRIMINAL JUSTICE are the CRIMINAL LAWS, dating back to 1867 and the CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, dating back to 1808.

The Criminal Laws certainly are the most appealing, concerning the more “classical” crimes, such as; counterfeiter, libel, bankruptcy, beatings and injuries, theft, fraud, vandalism,…with in each case a definition of the crime, with the minimum and maximum punishments the Court might impose.

The lawyer, confronted with certain facts, will ascertain whether or not these fit within the framework of a crime description, and then check what the possible consequences might be.

It goes without saying that in our constantly evolving society with new forms of communication and text storage, the Criminal Laws have ever since 1808 been constantly provided with additions, deletions, and/or completions, and that new specific laws have been introduced, hence all lawyers dealing with criminal justice have a constant but very fascinating activity.

This is not only because of the Criminal Laws’ rules, but also because of the rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure, whereby the lawyer must ensure that all legally stipulated “rules of play” are complied with both within the criminal investigation and for the trial of your case before the court.

In practice, this means that our office will help you knowledgeably and enthusiastically whenever you might come into contact with the criminal justice unintentionally (as a victim, innocent/ignorant or via third parties) or intentionally. Here are some examples:

• When you want to lodge a complaint against known/unknown parties and you have suffered damage due to the punishable behaviour of others. Our intervention is not restricted to lodging the complaint, but we will also undertake all required steps in as far as legally permitted, to be kept informed about the state of the investigation ( by requesting permission to read the dossier ) and to actively intervene in the investigation ( by suggesting certain acts of investigation). Of course, we will do everything possible to calculate your damage and to use all recovery means possible.

• When you should be the suspected person in a criminal investigation. Not only, will we do everything required to be kept regularly informed about the investigation following a request to see the dossier, but we will also look for elements together with you that are in your favour, both on the material and on the formal level, for example when the “rules of play” should not have been complied with.

• In pleadings before the Correctional Court, the Correctional Chambers, the Court of Appeal,... both on behalf of civil parties and on behalf of the suspected persons, whereby we will also submit written conclusions if thought useful the case arising.