It has indeed set a precedent, says Het Nieuwsblad. She was able to remove all obstacles step by step, such as the period within which paternity can be disputed and the fact that according to law she already had a legal father, Jacques Boël. “By successfully challenging that, up to the Constitutional Court, she opened the gates to her fellow sufferers,” says Swennen.
There are no reliable statistics, but according to lawyer Elfri De Neve, hundreds of “illegitimate” children in Belgium have now been inspired by Delphine. According to him, this is a historical change. “Legislation came about in the time of Napoleon. The father was the one who married the mother and no questions were asked. DNA testing did not exist. Once a family formed a legal unit, nothing was changed. That has changed. Delphine. The truth of the blood takes precedence over a family’s legal certainty: a child has the fundamental right to know her father. “
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