Justice
The Public Prosecutor of Brussels, Tim De Wolf, will relinquish that position from April 1 “for personal reasons”. He only fulfilled that position on an interim basis.
“After a career of 10 years as a deputy public prosecutor, of which the last three years as acting public prosecutor, I have decided for personal reasons to no longer exercise this position as acting public prosecutor from April 1, 2024,” reports Tim De. Wolf . “It was not an easy decision, but a well-considered one that was discussed some time ago within the management committee of the Brussels public prosecutor’s office.”
Marie-Rose Broucker, who now serves as operational director at the Brussels public prosecutor’s office, will succeed him as acting public prosecutor until a new public prosecutor is appointed. According to him, it has yet to be decided which position De Wolf will hold at the Brussels public prosecutor’s office after April 1.
Language problems
The Dutch-speaking public prosecutor served as Crown prosecutor since the departure of then prosecutor Jean-Marc Meilleur in April 2021. Meilleur had unexpectedly moved to the private sector. Due to language problems, a new full-fledged public prosecutor could not be appointed for the Brussels public prosecutor’s office, the largest in the country.
The appointment requires a change in the law so that a Dutch-speaking attorney can also become a prosecutor in Brussels, with a French-speaking deputy. Until now, the public prosecutor always had to be French-speaking, but that law has been annulled by the Constitutional Court. De Wolf’s superior, the Brussels Attorney General Johan Delmulle, has already publicly complained about this situation several times.
The result is that the public prosecutor’s office has been led with one hand behind its back for years. For example, the Brussels public prosecutor’s office had to admit that it had made a mistake in the succession of Abdesalem Lassoued, the Tunisian who shot dead two Swedes in Brussels. The extradition request for the Tunisian was gathering dust in a cupboard of the Brussels public prosecutor’s office. It is not so easy for an interim chief to implement a decisive reorganization if it can be reversed tomorrow.
New language requirements
At the end of January, the federal government reached an agreement on the new language requirements for the Brussels public prosecutor. A new French-speaking prosecutor would first be appointed for a five-year mandate, which could be extended twice, after which a Dutch-speaking prosecutor could head the Brussels public prosecutor’s office. The Council of State must still provide advice on this scheme, after which the Council of Ministers must approve the scheme in a second reading.