The opposition on the left votes against necessary anti-terror measure

16 June 2017
The opposition on the left votes against necessary anti-terror measure

The bill to lengthen the detention period for suspects in terrorism cases from 24 to 72 hours has narrowly missed achieving a two-thirds majority in the Chamber. The hoped-for extension will therefore not be introduced. “Most regrettable,” says Minister of Security and the Interior Jan Jambon. “Especially because during parliament hearings specialists said of their own accord that they saw this extension to be truly necessary.”

MP Koen Metsu also reacts with disappointment to the voting behaviour of some of his colleagues in the Chamber: “The opposition parties on the left are celebrating this as a real victory. But everyone loses in this scenario: ordinary citizens, justifiably concerned about their safety, most of all.”

Justice itself the requesting party

As chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Combating Terrorism, Koen Metsu can only agree with Minister Jambon’s words: “All the experts in our hearing, except for one, said that 24 hours was too little. Some said they would find 48 hours acceptable. But there were also a great many who were asking for those extra 24 hours for terror files, because to underestimate the complexity of such dossiers would be a grave wrong.” Among other things, these experts are employed by the Anti-terror Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (OCAD), the federal judicial police and the board of attorney generals. “Not us, the legislative power, but justice itself - and to be more precise the people in the field - are the ones who are insisting on those extra 24 hours,” Koen Metsu emphasises.

Extension to 48 hours?

The extension of the period of provisional detention to 72 hours was one of the measures that this government proposed following the Paris attacks of November 2015. “We will now look at whether we can propose an alternative formula that is less far-reaching, for example to 48 hours, and whether it might be possible for a two-thirds majority to be found for it,” Minister Jambon concludes.

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