BELGIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT PUBLISHES ITS POSITION ON THE CST IN A PRESS RELEASE

Carine Knapen

On 27 April 2023, the Constitutional Court, published a press release publicly stating its views on the Covid Safe Ticket ( CST ). It usually does not do so, or only very exceptionally. Whether the recent ruling by the Court of Appeal of Liege, which declared the extension of the CST illegal, has anything to go with these proceedings remains an open question.

The Court stated that it has dismissed the 14 appeals filed against the CST legislation with the exception of Article 3 of the Flemish government's Decree of 29 October 2021, which did not provide clear criteria for the CST in hospitals, residential care centers, rehabilitation centers and facilities for persons with disabilities, making it unclear to visitors to these institutions whether the CST was compulsory or not.

The main argument of the plaintiffs in annulment of the CST legislation was - correctly, by the way - that it discriminated against the non-vaccinated since it was much more difficult for them to get a CST and, therefore, to participate normally in the social intercourse that a CST required.

The second argument was that the CST was actually a disguised vaccination mandate, which, on the other hand, is incorrect. A CST could also be obtained with a negative PCR test or a recovery certificate.

The court stated that the government has not introduced a vaccination requirement ( which is correct, even for healthcare personnel ) and the main purpose of the CST was to limit the spread of the Covid virus and further more, that the impugned legislation was not disproportionate to the purpose it sought to achieve.

The court further recognized that the compulsory submission of a CST in order to be able to access certain places and facilities may have constituted an interference ( it deliberately does not use the term " infringement " ) with respect for private and family life ( which is a Constitutional right that is guaranteed but that too is not mentioned ) but the Belgian State ( which was a party in this case ! ) has the obligation to take appropriate measures to protect the life and health of everyone, that the Covid-19 pandemic was characterized by a high reproductive rate and a high number of asymptomatic "patients " who can, however, be super-spreaders and without measures there would be an exponential spread.

The position of the court and its 13 judges shows that they are either totally unworldly, have a phenomenal hole in their memory or are corrupt to the bone. Indeed, numerous counsel for the plaintiffs,including yours truly, have very circumstantially explained and demonstrated in their petitions and subsequent writings that there was no pandemic, there never has been a pandemic and that no more than 10% of all tested positive at the highest peak. Moreover, a large proportion of the positive tests were false positives. Extrapolated to the full population of - then - rounded 11.5 million citizens, the infection rate was barely 0.3%.

The Court goes phenomenally off the rails where it argues that scientific studies ( which it has obviously never read or only selectively ) show that recently vaccinated, recovered or tested persons ( they are immediately all lumped together ) are far less likely to infect a person which allowed the legislature to judge that the introduction of a CST was necessary to protect the lives and health of those affected and other persons in society.

The court too is not shy of some drama.

A multitude of studies already existed at the time of the introduction of the CST that showed that the vaccine did not do what it promised and gave the vaccinated a false sense of security. Steven Van Gucht, state expert on behalf of Sciensano even openly said during an interview " we have never claimed that vaccines protect against infection and infectivity ". He could hardly have said anything else considering the hospitals at that time were filled with ... vaccinated people. That someone who tests negative is not infectious is quite obvious and neither is someone who has had the disease and recovered from it. In scientific terms this is called " natural immunity " which also existed in 99.7% of the population who have not been ill and have not had any symptoms either which makes it very unlikely that they ever infected anyone. The view that there have been many asymptomatic " patients " ( who have never been patients due to not being sick and no symptoms ) hits like a pig on a stick.

You can read the full press release in this link :

https://www.const-court.be/public/n/2023/2023-068n-info.pdf

Afterword :

It is very disturbing that the politicized Constitutional Court has simply disregarded previous jurisprudence of a Court of Appeal which, under the Constitution, has a power of review, and ( clearly ) ruled completely the other way around without any knowledge of the matter.

Justice is supposed to be one and indivisible. A judgment of a Court of Appeal has res judicata and is de jure binding. Only the Court of Cassation is above it, but only in terms of form and not in terms of substance. Cassation does not have jurisdiction to rule on the subject and the merits. It may only examine whether a court has complied with the laws in adjudication.

The fact that the Constitutional Court which, in principle, is only competent to assess and evaluate any violations of the Constitution and other existing laws, disregards the Constitution and acts as if this supreme law that is the foundation of our democracy does not exist, is totally unacceptable.

Not insignificant in the whole matter is that since the enactment of the CST, almost 2 years have lapsed,period during which thousands of studies have been published that have made chip wood of the vaccines, PCR tests, quarantine measures, lock-downs and all other freedom-restricting measures that have had a very pernicious impact on the people of all the concerned nations and hit the world economy in such hard way that it still has not recovered from it.