Introduction
In 1889, a young lawyer summarised legal aid as follows: “To pay is a necessity; to obtain justice another. What if the injured person is poor?”[156] In this chapter, I will provide an overview of the institutional history of legal aid in Belgium.[157] However, three preliminary remarks are necessary.
The first regards the origins of the Belgian legal system.[158] In 1795, French revolutionary troops conquered the Belgian territories and
1 My translation from French: “Payer, Pest une necessite; obtenir justice en est une autre. Si done la personne lesee est pauvre?” Elias (1889).
2 This contribution is the elaborated and adapted version of an earlier publication written in Dutch. See Debaenst (2009). I would also like to thank Professor Georges Martyn (Ghent University), Professor Felice Batlan, Marianne Vasara-Aaltonen, and Anita Geritz for their valuable comments.
3 For an overview of the Belgian legal culture, see Debaenst (2020); on the Belgian legal system, see Van Hoecke and Vandenbogaerde (2017). For an analysis of the Belgian legal culture as a spin-off of the French legal culture, see Heirbaut (2017).
annexed them.[159] In the following years, the French government installed new French institutions and legislation. After the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Belgian territories became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.[160] In 1830, revolution broke out in the South of the Kingdom and the next year, Belgium became an independent constitutional monarchy.[161] This explains why the foundations of the Belgian legal system are French in origin, with some minor modifications during the Dutch period.[162]
My second remark concerns the concept of pro Deo—“for God” in Latin. Pro Deo refers to the religious and charitable origins of legal aid, but even today, lawyers in Belgium providing legal aid are informally called pro Deo lawyers (pro Deo advocaten in Dutch, avocatspro Deo in French).
Finally, Belgium historically made a distinction between two different aspects of legal aid. The first involves exemptions of the costs of judicial proceedings, including court fees and all other possible costs, such as the services of bailiffs,[163] notaries,[164] procurators,[165] and judicial experts. The second concerns free legal assistance by a lawyer, which historically always has been separate from the first category.