We, the under­si­gned orga­ni­sa­tions, have taken note of the latest opi­nion issued by the Coun­cil of State on 11 May 2026 concer­ning the draft law on home visits. As a remin­der, on 20 August 2025, the Coun­cil of State had alrea­dy, in the words of the press, “sava­ged the pre­li­mi­na­ry draft law on home visits”, cal­ling for the text to be “fun­da­men­tal­ly revised”.

In the new opi­nion of 11 May 2026 reques­ted by the govern­ment, the Coun­cil of State expli­cit­ly states that it is not re-exa­mi­ning the sub­stance of the draft, consi­de­ring that it alrea­dy ren­de­red its legal ana­ly­sis in its opi­nion of 20 August 2025 : when issuing a second opi­nion, the Coun­cil of State exa­mines only the new pro­vi­sions. It also cla­ri­fies that it is not its role to veri­fy whe­ther the govern­ment has actual­ly taken its pre­vious cri­ti­cisms into account.

Our orga­ni­sa­tions were able to consult the ver­sion of the text refer­red back to the Coun­cil of State. It emerges that no sub­stan­tial modi­fi­ca­tion has been made to the ini­tial mecha­nism that would address the fun­da­men­tal cri­ti­cisms alrea­dy expres­sed by the Coun­cil of State. The five adap­ta­tions men­tio­ned in the latest opi­nion are minor, and the Coun­cil of State itself notes that they “give rise to no observation”.

The cri­ti­cisms made during the ini­tial exa­mi­na­tion the­re­fore remain ful­ly rele­vant. No res­ponse has been given to the most fun­da­men­tal cri­ti­cisms of the Coun­cil of State. Serious infrin­ge­ment of the invio­la­bi­li­ty of the home and the right to pri­vate and fami­ly life, absence of a right of appeal against an autho­ri­sa­tion for a home visit, insuf­fi­cient pro­tec­tion of third par­ties — in par­ti­cu­lar chil­dren, who, in the latest draft, still risk suf­fe­ring trau­ma as a result of a visit car­ried out in their home.

To this must be added the legal impre­ci­sion of the notion of “dan­ger to public order”, liable to open the door to broad and poten­tial­ly arbi­tra­ry inter­pre­ta­tions, as high­ligh­ted in par­ti­cu­lar by MYRIA and the Asso­cia­tion Syn­di­cale des Magis­trats. On the contra­ry : the latest ver­sion of the text spe­ci­fies that “the mere fact of being in an irre­gu­lar situa­tion is not in itself suf­fi­cient to be consi­de­red a dan­ger to public order, but it may be taken into account.” A simple situa­tion of admi­nis­tra­tive irre­gu­la­ri­ty could the­re­fore hen­ce­forth be fac­to­red in to cri­mi­na­lise a person.

It should also be recal­led that the exis­ting legal arse­nal alrea­dy makes it pos­sible to act effec­ti­ve­ly in the event of a genuine threat to public secu­ri­ty : arrest war­rants and search war­rants within the fra­me­work of cri­mi­nal pro­cee­dings. This draft law the­re­fore brings no added value in this regard. On the contra­ry, it reduces the level of pro­tec­tion and gua­ran­tees affor­ded to citi­zens in cases where their home is sub­jec­ted to an intru­sion — spe­ci­fi­cal­ly if a per­son without a resi­dence per­mit is staying with them.

In light of these ele­ments, the under­si­gned orga­ni­sa­tions main­tain their demand for the pure and simple aban­don­ment of this pre­li­mi­na­ry draft law. A par­tial revi­sion can­not suf­fice. It is the very prin­ciple of home visits out­side any cri­mi­nal pro­cee­dings and for the pur­poses of admi­nis­tra­tive arrests that is at issue. This draft would in prac­tice autho­rise inter­ven­tions in pri­vate homes to car­ry out arrests moti­va­ted by a fai­lure of admi­nis­tra­tive sta­tus. Such a mea­sure raises fun­da­men­tal ques­tions regar­ding res­pect for the rule of law and consti­tu­tio­nal­ly gua­ran­teed rights.

The Coun­cil of State does not make poli­cy — it mere­ly ensures that our posi­tive law is in confor­mi­ty with human rights and our Consti­tu­tion. This is a mes­sage that a govern­ment res­pect­ful of the rule of law can­not ignore. If the govern­ment none­the­less decides to pur­sue this pro­ject in Par­lia­ment, des­pite the repea­ted war­nings of the Coun­cil of State, it will then fall to par­lia­men­ta­rians to vote against it. Res­pect for the Consti­tu­tion and fun­da­men­tal rights can­not be trea­ted as one poli­ti­cal option among others. Faced with such mani­fest vio­la­tions of ele­men­ta­ry fun­da­men­tal rights, the oath of obe­dience to the Consti­tu­tion calls on our elec­ted repre­sen­ta­tives not to abs­tain, but to refuse a mea­sure that is both liber­ty-des­troying and unconstitutional.

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Signa­to­ry orga­ni­sa­tions :

Asso­cia­tion Syn­di­cale des Magis­trats : Laurent Sacré
Avocats.be : Sté­phane Gothot
BAPN (Bel­gisch Net­werk Armoe­de­bes­tri­j­ding): Caro­line Van der Hoe­ven
Bel­Re­fu­gees : Meh­di Kas­sou
Bruxelles Laïque : Fabrice Van Rey­me­nant
CAL : Benoit Van­der­meer­schen
CIRÉ : Sotie­ta Ngo
CNCD-11.11.11 : Arnaud Zacha­rie
Fédé­ra­tion des Ser­vices Sociaux : Céline Nieu­wen­huys
FGTB : Sele­na Car­bo­ne­ro Fer­nan­dez
Ligue des Droits Humains : Sibylle Gioe
Ligue des Familles : Made­leine Guyot
Mou­ve­ment Ouvrier Chré­tien : Ariane Estenne
Réseau Wal­lon de Lutte contre la Pau­vre­té : Chris­tine Mahy
Les Ter­ri­toires de la Mémoire : Michaël Bisschops