Legal System in Belgium

Table of Contents

The Belgian Legal System in a nutshell
Developments in Belgian Legal Documentation
Legislation
Parliaments
Law Reports (case law of the higher courts)
Law Reviews (incl. case law of the lower courts)
Encyclopedias, Series, Forms, Dictionaries and English Introductions
Treatises, Textbooks and (some) Websites by subject
Legal Links, Legal Profession, Legal Publishers, Legal Education, Journal Abbreviations

The Belgian Legal System in a Nutshell

Belgium is a federal state with a civil law system and is a member of the European Union. These three qualities basically account for the legal system the country has adopted.

The Belgian state was formed as a constitutional monarchy in 1830, as a compromise between French and Dutch claims, appeased by the British government. At that time, it was already largely influenced by the French legal system and this was laid down in the constitution. The legislative branch was formed by a parliament with two chambers (Chamber and Senate). The King was (and is) the head of state and of the executive branch, but political power is almost entirely in the hands of the government and it’s prime minister. The judicial branch consists of regular courts in different appeal levels (private and criminal law matters), later an administrative court was added (1948). A constitutional court has only been set up in recent times (1980). Although the Belgian state has undergone severe constitutional changes since this date, the court system has still not been touched by these yet.

Belgium

Court System

The court system still very much resembles the French system where it was derived from. The ordinary courts rank in four levels: “Tribunal de Police/Politierechtbank” (criminal) and “Tribunal des Juges de Paix/Vredegerechten” (civil) are the lowest levels for small felonies or conciliation matters. Normal starting level (first instance) is the “Tribunal de Première Instance/Rechtbank van Eerste Aanleg” (civil and criminal), which is called correctional court or juvenile court in criminal matters. Recently, specialized tax chambers were added to the formal organization of the courts of first instance. Commercial courts have lay judges alongside professional magistrates and social law cases appear in the labour tribunal. Serious offenses appear before the “Cour d’Assises/Court of Assizes”, the only Belgian court with a jury. The appeal level is the “Cour d’Appel/Hof van Beroep”, where civil, criminal and commercial matters are dealt with; only the “Cour de Travail/Arbeidshof” is a specific appeal court for social law cases coming from the lower labour tribunals. Finally, the “Cour de Cassation/Hof van Cassatie” is the highest appeal level, dealing only with points of law, no new facts can be brought before this court, just like in the French system.

Although civil and criminal courts are both in the same “ordinary” court system, it must be stressed that criminal cases have a specific “foreplay”, with preliminary investigations, an Examining Magistrate and a Public Attorney. All this is written down in the Code of criminal procedure (1867), as is done for civil cases in the (new) Code of civil procedure (1967). Judicial review as such belongs to the ordinary courts, but administrative redress is possible before an administrative court, where the highest administrative court is the Council of State.

The one thing about the court system that could not be the same as in France is of course the use of languages in court. Legal practice has to deal with the fact that the use of either the Dutch or the French language in court depends on the region where the court is established. In Brussels, both languages are used. As a reminder for non-Belgians: the name of the language spoken in Flanders, the Flemish part of Belgium, is Dutch. “Flemish” is not a language, the language of Flanders is the same as in the Netherlands, although there are some slight differences, just like the differences between British English and American English.

Form of State

On the other hand, the organization of the legislative and executive branches of the state has undergone severe changes since the beginnings and is in no way similar to the French example nowadays. Whereas the cohabitation of the two language groups has never been easy, the complex situation of Brussels (being the capital of the country and lying entirely on Flemish territory but with 90% of its population speaking French) forced politicians to turn the country into a federal state. Because territory and language did not match the same entities, different regions as well as different language communities were established, both of them with legislative powers for different points of interest. Brussels has a special status, as well as the small German speaking community on the east border. These constitutional changes, starting in 1970, have to this day still not come to their end. The years 1980, 1988, 1993 and 2001 all marked the shifting of power to the regions and communities, and after the 2010 election, another state reform seems imminent.

The federal government issues acts (wet/loi) whereas the regions and communities issue decrees (decreet/decret). However, the core of the civil, commercial and criminal law remains at federal level, whereas mostly public law issues like education, environment and culture, have become the competence of the regions and communities.

Being not only part of the European Union but even one of its founding fathers, Belgium has to apply European legislation and has to give regard to rulings of the European Court of Justice. Detailed consequences thereof are not dealt with in this short guide, just like consequences resulting from being signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights. However, the importance of this European dimension is evident and keeps growing, so the most important legislative and judicial institutions and their output are briefly mentioned in this guide.

2. Developments in Belgian Legal Documentation

The paper history: private and public publishing

Belgian legal publishing has never been a really booming business. It suffers somehow from the small size of the country, which is even worsened by the fact that publishers have to choose either for the Dutch or French language. The Belgian section of the worldwide legal publisher Wolters Kluwer dominates the market since 1980, similar to the situation in the Netherlands, although less monopolistic. In earlier days, two Francophone publishers, Bruylant and Larcier, closely related to the Brussels courts, were in charge (and still are for French language editions). For many years, the government did little more than publish the Official Gazette and was not able to produce consolidated texts of legislation in a suitable way. As a result, those three publishers were the most important source for knowing how the law stood, by way of their loose-leaf annotated codes (see below) and commentaries.

The three high courts (Cour Constitutionnelle, Cour de Cassation, Conseil d’Etat) all have their own more or less official law reporters, be it with some help from commercial publishers. However, as in most other European civil law countries, the publishing of lower case law lies almost entirely in the hands of commercial legal journals, although this is slightly changing in the sense that governmental databases start publishing online lower case law (see below). Most journals are published by Kluwer and Larcier, followed by Bruylant and Die Keure – La Charte. The loose-leaf market is almost entirely in the hands of Kluwer, Die Keure has quit loose-leaf publishing. When it comes to treatises and books, Intersentia, Larcier and Die Keure rival Kluwer, whereas Bruylant is becoming less important for Belgian law books. Some smaller legal publishers are Maklu, Biblo, Vanden Broele and Story Publishers.

The electronic history (1988-2000): from Justel to Judit and back

Before 1997, the outstanding electronic legal device was a Kluwer database on CD-ROM called Judit, with no serious challenge from other products. Judit was a reference tool created in the late eighties, with hardly any full texts, but with (bibliographic) references to legislation, case law and journal articles. To read the referred documents themselves, one had to get hold on the paper products, which it refers to: the Official Gazette and the law reviews and books. Two features were special about Judit. Referring to case law and journal articles combined is rather common in European legal databases, but adding legislation to it is rather uncommon. The second strange thing about Judit is the fact that it gives summaries of judicial decisions that were published in journals by other publishers than Kluwer, with no protest from those other publishers for many years. Those two features made Judit the one and only reference tool you needed, bearing in mind that electronic full text was unavailable anyhow, so you had to rely on your paper library.

This Judit-monopoly in the nineties notwithstanding, electronic legal publishing had actually already started in the sixties with the building of the Justel dial-in databases at the Ministry of Justice. However, due to a complete lack of user-friendly products, those databases became only known to the public 35 years later, when they were made available on the Internet in 2000. All of a sudden, these quite large public databases appeared free on the net, offering access to consolidated legislation and case law of the Supreme Courts and the Constitutional Court. Furthermore, the Official Gazette was published daily on the net since 1997 and the Council of State had moved to exclusive electronic free publishing of its case law in the same year. Since 1995, the parliament has its draft bills (documents) and hansards (debates) in full text on the web. All these public and free of charge databases were warmly welcomed by users, who slowly turned away from the private owned sources in legislation and case law.

E-publishing since 2000: the full text era

To meet the challenge from the new public websites, Kluwer published Judit and TWS (see below) together on the web in early 2000, calling the “new” database Jura. But this didn’t end its problems on the online market: full text of lower case law and journal articles was still almost exclusively in printed resources, whereas lawyers were finding their way to the web: they began to expect more full text in legal databases. Furthermore, other legal publishers woke up from their paper dream and started trying to set up electronic databases themselves. An early attempt at the end of nineties by Mys & Breesch to create a full text database, Judas, failed. Between 2000 and 2004, some separate journals created a website with full text, without much ado. In 2003, Kluwer mounted the Kluwer Connexionwebsite, on which CD-ROM’s could be accessed online. This was an attempt to respond to the declining interest in its loose-leaf products and their CD-ROM versions.

Then in 2004, Larcier published a complete new website called Strada, offering various full text resources, including some important law reviews. This was a breakthrough, and was almost instantly (spring 2005) followed by an important enlargement of the content of Jura with full text of most law reviews that Kluwer publishes. Not much later, autumn 2005, Jurisquare appeared on the scene, regrouping three other publishers Intersentia, Die Keure and Bruylant. Jurisquare’s content is limited to full text of law journals only. In an attempt to challenge the market leader Jura, the two new databases Strada and Jurisquare, joined forces autumn 2006, by offering each others journals on both their websites. Outnumbered in the quantity of e-journals by both Strada and Jurisquare, Kluwer started to add more content to Jura by increasing the number of loose-leaf works in online form in Jura, their Kluwerconnexion meeting with very little success anyhow.

All this means that in three years time (2004-2007), we went from almost no commercial e-full text at all, to an overall availability of the majority of all-important journals and loose-leafs. Spring 2007 marked the restart (new interface, new URL) of the governmental Juridat case law database (see below) with the intention of adding more lower case law in the future, but until now, this attempt clearly failed, it is still very much limited to Cassation case law.

Between 2009 and 2010 all three databases have got new interfaces with new types of search facilities. Jurisquare introduced facetted searching in 2009, followed in 2010 by Jura and Strada. RenamedStradalex at this occasion, this platform also introduced the automatic translation of search terms (Dutch-French) and a word cloud with related terms alongside the search results. In 2010, Jurisquare managed to make a deal with Kluwer to offer the Jura-owned journals on its website, just as it did with Strada in 2006. This means that now Jurisquare is a one-stop shop for nearly all legal journals of the country.

Legislation

In Belgium, legislation is, in theory, the one and only primary source of law. In practice, case law and secondary sources are quite important too. Classic fields of law have been “codified” into specific codes, a process started by Napoleon with the Civil Code in 1804 (Belgium was French territory at the time). However, codification is still going on today, e.g. the Company Code in 1999, or the Code of PIL in 2004. Although the importance of these codes in everyday legal practice is high, they are a piece of legislation as any other law, undergoing continuous changes. The biggest databases have thousands of different laws, one of them being the (updated) Civil Code.

Treaties

When an international treaty is ratified by Parliament (in some cases the question may rise which of the six (!) parliaments has to ratify!), a law ratifying the treaty is voted upon. Therefore, all international treaties appear in the Official Gazette in one of the original languages of the treaty, mostly as an appendix to that law. Sometimes one or more translations are added, with official status or not. Databases like Juridat or Jura have the texts of all-important treaties Belgium has signed and ratified. Since 2004, the federal Foreign Affairs Department offers on its website a Treaties Database with all treaties since 1987 that Belgium has signed. It tells exactly whether or not a treaty is in force.

European Union Legislation

European “regulations” have immediate force of law in the Member States, and they appear in the Official Journal of the EU, as do “directives” and other official documents. All this can be found on Eur-Lex, the major legal database of the EU. Regularly, the Belgian Official Gazette sums up these regulations as a mere form of information, not reproducing the texts themselves.

Constitution

The original constitution from 1831 was severely revised between 1970 and 1993. Therefore, a new version was issued on 17 February 1994. Since then, more changes have taken place, all of them incorporated in the official version on the website of the Senate, in Dutch or French.

3.1 Legislation: chronologically published

Official Gazette

The “Moniteur belge” or “Belgisch Staatsblad” is the Official Gazette of the country. It holds every piece of new legislation from all parliaments and governments: “acts” (loi/wet) by the federal parliament, “decrees” (décret/decreet) by the regional parliaments and all kinds of statutory instruments: “Arrêté royal” (“Koninklijk Besluit”), “Arrêté ministeriel” (“Ministerieel Besluit”), and all “arrêtés” or “besluiten” by the various regional governments. Since it also holds a lot of other official information (exams and nominations, insolvency’s, immigrations etc.), it is quite a heavy daily newspaper, dating back to 1831.

However, from 1788 to 1845, laws were published in the “Bulletin officiel des lois et arrêtés royaux de la Belgique”, and only from 1845 onwards in the Moniteur. Before 1898, French was the only official language; Dutch translations were sometimes added but with no official status. Only in the 1960s, important older laws like the civil and criminal code were officially translated in Dutch and published in the Official Gazette. Recently, German translations of important laws are published for the small (less than 100,000 citizens) German speaking community.

Since July 1997, the Official Gazette is published daily on the Internet on the website of the Federal Justice Department (formerly the Ministry of Justice) or here. It has a search engine for full text. Texts are presented both in HTML and in PDF. In 2003, the government stopped the publication of the paper version, quite an extraordinary decision at that time. However, since 2005, due to a judgment of the Constitutional Court, a limited number of paper copies are available again in local libraries, for people with difficulties in accessing the Internet.

Note that the above links will not lead you directly to the Official Gazette, but to the general website of the Federal Justice Department, only the next page will present you the Gazette, amongst other features of that website.

Pasinomie, Omnilegie, Bulletin législatif belge

These are some alternative paper collections, where the laws are published chronologically. Pasinomie dates back to 1788, which is particularly interesting for very old texts, sometimes including parliamentary debates, but is in French only. Omnilegie started in 1950 and is in Dutch and French. It was renamed “Tijdschrift voor Wetgeving” in 1999 and now contains scholarly articles as well. The days of these chronological series are over of course, because they are published always too late and even then, they do not consolidate the texts.

3.2 Legislation: Consolidated

Consolidated Legislation (Juridat) (Federal Justice Department)

Since the summer of 2000, a huge and quite comprehensive governmental database with consolidated texts of legislation, including older versions, is available for free on the Internet. The database is very interesting for high-level legal research. The search engine offers lots of possibilities, and texts are in Dutch and French. Actually, this legislation database is part of a set of databases; other databases involve case law and a bibliography of legal texts, all of them published by the Justice Department. They will all be mentioned in this guide later.

The name of this legislation database is indeed “Consolidated Legislation”, if you can call that a name. However, the mentioned total set of databases from the Justice Department has been called Justel, Judoc, E-justice, Juridat and even Justel again. In addition, their URL’s have been subject to quite some changes and caused a lot of confusion since 2000 to this very day. You can reach them in different ways:

The official website of the Belgian Judicial Power (the Belgian Courts).
The website of the Federal Justice Department.
The web server of the “Court de Cassation“, the Supreme Court.

BelgiumLex (BelgieLex – BelgiqueLex)

The Justice Department is not the only governmental body that produces a legislative database. The Council of State and Parliament have likewise developed their own databases over the years. So finally, in an effort to sum this all up and somehow trying to end the confusion, the government created another website with an apparently very clear name, BelgiumLex. BelgiumLex is not a database itself; rather it is a portal to give an overview of all governmental legal databases, pointing to the various databases from the Justice Department, the Parliament and the three highest courts. However, it might not end the confusion, because it gives access to legislation and case law at the same time. Furthermore, it points to databases like Reflex from the Council of State that are not easy to use. Reflex is a legislation database without full text, but it will give the complete history of every article of a law in all its details. To get to the full text, links are established between Reflex and the Juridat Consolidated Legislation database. This idea of linking the various governmental databases is an important feature of BelgiumLex.

Jura

For some years, Kluwer Belgium has had a CD-ROM, called “Tweetalige Wetboeken Story” (TWS). This CD was derived from a huge loose-leaf series with the same name, which used to be the primary source of consolidated legislation for two decades. In January 2000, they included this database on their general legal database, Jura, that also includes case law and more (see below). The consolidation of texts in Jura has been done completely separate from Juridat (Justel) or Reflex, so this represents another, private owned, consolidation of the same Belgian legislation. Dutch and French texts are available. Unlike the official databases, Jura is not for free, since it is from a commercial publisher. By the way, TWS continues to exist on paper.

Vlaamse Codex

All regional Flemish legislation appears in the Official Gazette and most of it can be found the databases Juridat and Jura. However, the Flemish government offers also a free database on its website with all Flemish legislation since beginning of the eighties. Vlaamse Codex has good search possibilities and offers consolidated texts.

Wallex and Gallilex

All regional Walloon legislation appears in the Official Gazette and most of it can be found the databases Juridat and Jura. However, the Walloon government offers also a free database on its website with a selection of its legislation, called Wallex. The French Community has its own Gallilex.

Codes Larcier (via Stradalex, Larcier), Codes belges (CD, Bruylant), Lexact (Vandenbroele)

Codes Larcier and Codes belges are two classic paper collections with only French texts of Belgian legislation. Larcier has a Dutch version since 1994, called Larcier Wetboeken. The Codes Larcier are also available through Stradalex, the online resource by publisher Larcier (see below). Stradalex also offers a search engine to search all official websites, including the legislation databases from the Justice Department. Finally, Vanden Broele has a legislation database called Lexact.

Online specific legislation

Various federal and regional government departments and other (official) organizations have developed interesting websites with legislative databases on specific legal topics. They offer not just laws and regulations, but also lower administrative rulings etcetera. Some examples are:

Fisconet – Tax legislation from the federal government
Edulex – Education legislation from the Flemish government
Juridisk – Social legislation from Standaard Uitgeverij

Smaller printed code editions and Loose-leafs

A number of smaller editions of updated codes exist, published by various publishers. An overview can be found here, chapter 1.2.4 (Zakwetboeken). Legislation on specific topics sometimes leads to the existence of large loose-leaf series with all relevant legislation assembled, e.g. environmental or education law.

Parliaments (preparatory texts)

European Union

Documents of the European Parliament can be found on here. COM Documents, the preparatory texts of the European Commission, are available since 1999 on Eur-Lex. The former Celex has been abolished.

Council of Europe

Since most of the treaties or recommendations of the Council of Europe are only soft law, the work of this parliament is not that important. The Councils website gives access to the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers.

Federal Parliament: Chamber + Senate

The website of the Federal Parliament leads you to the websites of the two chambers.

A huge project to scan all historical documents of the Chamber and Senate in PDF, has resulted in the availability of all documents since the early roots of the Belgian Kingdom, thus from 1830 until today. Having this massive collection completely online is extremely convenient for legal research. Since 2008, these also include the oral debates (Hansards).

The first chamber is the Chamber (De Kamer or La Chambre). Since the reform of 1993, this chamber adopts all regular laws. The second chamber is called the Senate and is reformed into a “reflection” chamber since 1993: it will only go over very important laws (e.g. changes of the constitution) and it will discuss ethical-legal issues like euthanasia.

Flemish Parliament

Click here to access the website of the Parliament of the Flemish region. All documents since its existence (1971) are online in PDF.

Walloon and Francophone Parliament

Click here to access the website of the Parlement de la Région Wallone.
Click here to access the website of the Parlement de la Communauté Française.
These websites also offer access to most of the documents or debates.

Brussels Institutions and Germanophones

Bruxelles.irisnet.be is the portal site for all the parliamentary and governmental sites of the Brussels region. The constitutional structure of this region (with its own parliament, divided in several sub-parliaments!) is not easy to understand for a foreigner, actually, not even for Belgians, keep away from it if you can. The small German speaking community has DG Live as a portal.

Governmental Information

Belgium.be is the general federal portal that contains governmental information and links to many other official websites, governmental departments and regional institutions.

Law Reports (case law of the higher courts)

About Law Reports and Law Reviews

Like in other European civil law systems, Law Reports do not have the same content and importance as in common law systems. Generally speaking, case law is reported in all kinds of general and specialized private owned law reviews. The choice as to what they will report is entirely in the hands of the editorial boards of these journals, they just pick out judgments they assume to be interesting to their readers. These law reviews very often add their own commentaries and keywords to the reported judgments. Furthermore, they rather limit the reporting to the important parts of the judgment, or even more, they give only short abstracts of the text of a judgment. By the way, these law reviews will publish scholarly articles in the same issue that have nothing to do with the reported case law.

This has been the way of law reporting in most European countries for many years. One of the results is that many judgments are not reported at all (although they might qualify), whereas very important decisions are reported several times in different journals, including the official law report. Indeed, although their case law can be found in several journals, the highest courts of the country tend to have a specific publication where their judgments are reported separately, on paper or electronically. These separate publications are the only real law reports in Belgium. With the internet making it a lot easier for a court to publish its own decisions (if it wants to), these kind of electronic law reports will probably gain importance in the future, to the detriment of the law reviews, who will have to focus more on commentaries and articles. Since spring 2007, the renewed Juridat case law database (now Juridat) has indeed expressed the intention to publish more reports from the lower courts from now on, but this has not worked out yet today.

European Court of Justice

Eur-Lex offers full text in all EU languages of the complete case law of the ECJ that also has its own website, Curia.

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights offers full text in English and French of the complete case law of the ECHR.

Constitutional Court (Grondwettelijk Hof, Cour Constitutionnelle)

The actual name and URL of this court needs a short historical explanation. Until 2005, this court was named “Court of Arbitration” (Arbitragehof, Cour d’Arbitrage, Schiedshof) and it had this URL . This was rather confusing to most (foreign) lawyers, because the court has indeed nothing to do with commercial or international arbitration. So why this confusing name? Until 1980, Belgium had no constitutional court at all, like the Netherlands but unlike France. After turning Belgium into a federal state in the seventies, a court was created to resolve conflicts between the federal bodies and the regional bodies. It had to “arbitrate” between them, hence its name. It still has that function today, by the way. In 1989, the competence of the Court was extended to include the supervision of the observance of a few articles of the Constitution, basically those guaranteeing the principles of equality and non-discrimination. In 2003, the competence was extended again and it became now a full constitutional court, reviewing all laws for compliance with the Constitution. Therefore, after a few years of discussion, its name was changed into Constitutional Court in 2007, with new URL’s in all three languages of the country: Cour Constitutionelle, Grondwettelijk Hof, and Verfassungs Hof. There is also an English URL.

It offers the full text in Dutch, French and German of all case law of the court since its beginnings. It has a full text search facility, among many other possibilities to search on various criteria. On the other hand, the same case law can be found on Juridat (see below). There is also a paper version reporter by private publisher Vanden Broele.

Council of State — Administrative High Court (Raad van State, Conseil d’Etat)

Raad van State offers full text of all case law of the court since 1994, but with only limited search capabilities when it was started in 1997: only full text search in PDF documents. A new interface has been launched in 2008, with more search facilities. Older cases are only available in two paper reporters “Verzameling van arresten van de Raad van State” and “Recueil des arrets du Conseil d’état”, both language versions by private publisher UGA. However, these paper reporters are not published anymore since 1994.

However, the Council of State is not only a court for judicial review; it also advises government and parliament about the quality of new legislation. The comments it makes on draft bills are sometimes published in the Official Gazette, but more often added to the documents of the parliaments and can thus be found on their websites. However, quite a lot of these legislative comments are not published at all, although this might be possible in the future. Inspired by the doings of the Constitutional Court, it adopted in 2007 wisely the aliases Raadvanstate and Conseil d’etat.

Supreme Court (Hof van Cassatie, Cour de Cassation)

The renewed (2007) database Juridat offers all cases of this court in French and Dutch in full text since 1990. Furthermore, it holds homemade summaries of all case law since 1965, which is very often quite helpful, even without the full text of the case. Full text of cases before 1990 can be found in the official paper reports “Arresten van het Hof van Cassatie” (Official Printing Office) or “Bulletin des arrêts de la Cour de cassation” (Bruylant). The French series is at the same time Part I of the Pasicrisie (see below).

Courts of Appeal and lower case law

The just mentioned renewed database Juridat intends to publish a large number of cases from lower courts. However, at this moment Supreme Court decisions form the core and the bulk of this database, because the cases that were reported in the past from lower courts and tribunals are sparse and have not been selected properly. They are in the database mere by chance, with the exception of labour law cases. Presently, lower case law is still published mainly in the law reviews.

Some special courts

Rekenhof or Cour des comptes – Court of Audit, controls the various governmental budgets
Benelux Court, renders cases on Uniform Benelux Laws, e.g. trademarks, motor vehicle liability insurance

Pasicrisie belge (Bruylant)

This is the only Belgian paper case law reporter in the strict sense. It is in French only and publishes the Supreme Court decisions (Part I), a selection of Appeal cases (Part II), and a very selective number of cases of lower tribunals (Part III). Because its interest is decreasing rapidly, Bruylant decided in 2003 only to maintain Part I. However, it is still very important for old case law, because it goes back to the 18th century and is the main source for those antique judgments.

Law Reviews (incl. case law of the lower courts)

As already mentioned above, just like other continental European law reviews, Belgian law reviews will publish scholarly articles alongside selected case law and commentaries. The cases they report are chosen according to the subject the journal is interested in, no matter what level of jurisdiction. Because lower case law is thus spread out over a multitude of law reviews, it is very imported to have general journal indexes (databases) to find relevant case law at all. Those (electronic) journal indexes give indeed access (references) to the case law and the articles in all those paper journals. Although e-journals are coming up stronger since 2004, some journals still exist only on paper, and even those that exist online, have rarely older content (before 2000) online, which makes electronic (online) indexes still rather indispensable for legal research.

6.1 Journal Indexing

The “Index to foreign legal periodicals” (AALL/Ovid) covers just a handful of Belgian law reviews. It can hardly be used for legal research with some depth. It is inevitable to use Belgian tools for that purpose.

Jura

The website Jura by Kluwer contains, apart from legislation, also a bibliographic part with references to articles and other smaller legal texts. They are more up to date than those in Juridat (see below), but the quality of the selection is less impartial: a lot of stuff published by Kluwer is indexed more heavily than articles and books from other publishers, which results in 180.000 references altogether. Overall, it is a quite complete bibliographic database of Belgian legal articles, regardless where they are published. This unique completeness makes it still a valuable tool.

Legislation and bibliography aside, Jura also has an important case law part. About 163.000 cases are indexed with summaries, referring to the full text spread over all Belgian paper law journals. In as much as Jura is presenting full text of some journals since 2005 (see below), some judgments are available in full text now. Important cases are indexed more than once under several headings. The interface is available in French and Dutch, but the summaries are more often in Dutch since the database has Flemish roots.

Juridat “Bibliothèques”

Apart from legislation and case law (see above), the database Juridat has an important bibliographic part. It holds references about Belgian books and law review articles since 1965. It is a free database, but nevertheless a good way to start a search for articles on Belgian law. This database is limited to articles, so no case law is included.

The part of Juridat that does contain case law (“Jurisprudence”) was already mentioned discussing the Supreme Court database. The cases in this database that are reported from lower courts and tribunals are, as said, not a very good selection, apart from the social law cases. It is not a journal-indexing database either, since it just gives a summary of the case, with no reference to a journal where it was published.

RPRJ -POJT(via Stradalex, Larcier)

The “Recueil Annuel de la Jurisprudence Belge” (RAJB) used to be a paper index in the form of a yearbook, which has been put on a CD-ROM in 1996 with a new edition every year. In 2005, it was at last put online, as part of the new website Stradalex (then Strada). In 2007 the name changed from RAJBi into RPRJ, “Recueil Permanent des Revues Juridiques” (in French) or POJT, “Permanent Overzicht van Juridische Tijdschriften” (in Dutch). Like Jura and Juridat, it is a national reporter, but this one focuses a bit more on the Francophone judgments. It has a bibliographic part for journal articles too, but this is rather limited. It still exists on paper too.

Historic printed Indexes

“Rechtsgids” by Kluwer was a loose-leaf indexing tool in some 20 volumes for Belgian law in general. It lists by subject all relevant legislation, case law and legal literature, referring to journals were they were published. Publication was abandoned in 2004.

“Repertoire decennal de la jurisprudence belge” is a classic tool, referring to case law in journals only. It was published every 10 years since 1880 and stopped in 1980, thus being only suitable for older case law.

6.2 Legal journals and e-journals

Belgium has a core of 100 printed law reviews. On top of that, probably another 100 titles can be regarded as focusing at least partly on legal matters. In 2005 a commission of legal scholars at the VLIRranked the national legal journals (giving them an A, B or C level) based on the quality of their articles. The result was heavily criticized and in 2009, a new attempt has been started. The lists below contain all current A-level and most B-level law reviews, whereas newsletters and yearbooks are not withheld in the lists.

Some journals are more than 100 years old (all in French), but most of them date from after World War II. New journals are born regularly, like in other countries. About 30% are bilingual, 30% in French, 40% in Dutch. For every field of law one or more specialized journal exist, be it not always in both languages.

Since 2006, there are three important fee-based platforms that offer legal e-journals: Jura, Stradalex and Jurisquare. Jura (Kluwer) and Stradalex (Larcier) are the product of one single publisher, whereas Jurisquare is a consortium of Bruylant, Die Keure and Intersentia, along with some smaller publishers. It is interesting to know that Stradalex and Jurisquare decided in 2007 to publish each other’s journals on their platforms. Since 2010, Jurisquare also publishes the Jura journals, thus offering all journals as the only platform of the three. Of course, to access all journals, one has to have a subscription to every journal.

Jura

Kluwer makes its e-journals available through its main database Jura by way of a pay per view system or through various forms of subscription to parts of the database. However, you cannot have a subscription to the e-journals as such; neither can you browse the journals issue by issue. This also implies that citation data like volume, issue or page number are not enough to find the online text. You need the title and author (for an article), or the date and court (for a case), unless of course you are searching by subjects or keywords. So somehow, you might raise the question if we are talking about e-journals at all, maybe it might better be described as e-articles and e-cases. Since the new search tool launched in 2010, full text searching in a Google-like manner is the standard procedure and facets can be used to reduce the number of search results.

In 2010, about 25 journals are online. Most titles start coverage in 1999. Apart from journals, Jura also contains a lot of former loose-leaf publications, but they are not mentioned in this list.

Actualités du droit de la famille
Algemeen juridisch tijdschrift
Aménagement – Environnement
De Juristenkrant
Intellectuele rechten / Droits intellectuels
Jaarboek handelspraktijken en mededinging
Nieuw juridisch weekblad
Notarieel en fiscaal maandblad
Orde van de dag
Oriëntatie / Orientations
Recueil général de l’enregistrement et du notariat
Revue de droit communal
Sociaalrechtelijke kronieken / Chroniques de droit social
Tijdschrift huurrecht
Tijdschrift voor aansprakelijkheid en verzekering in het wegverkeer (until 2003)
Tijdschrift voor appartements- en immorecht
Tijdschrift voor Belgisch burgerlijk recht / Revue générale de droit civil
Tijdschrift voor bestuurswetenschappen en publiekrecht
Tijdschrift voor familierecht
Tijdschrift voor gemeenterecht
Tijdschrift voor gezondheidsrecht / Revue de droit de la santé
Tijdschrift voor milieurecht
Tijdschrift voor procesrecht en bewijsrecht / Revue de droit judiciaire et de la preuve
Tijdschrift voor strafrecht
Tijdschrift voor verzekeringen / Bulletin des assurances
Verkeer Aansprakelijkheid Verzekering / Circulation Responsabilité Assurances
Verkeersrecht Jurisprudentie / Droit de la circulation Jurisprudence (until 2003)

Kluwer’s tax and accountancy related law journals are not available in Jura but only in their separate database MonKey, some of them are quite important law reviews:

Accountancy & Bedrijfskunde
Algemeen fiscaal tijdschrift / Revue générale de fiscalité
Comptabilité et Fiscalité Pratiques
De vennootschap
Expat News
Fiscale actualiteit / Actualités Fiscales
Fiscale koerier / Courrier fiscal
Fiscale jurisprudentie / Jurisprudence fiscale
Sociale wegwijzer

Stradalex

Larcier makes its e-journals available through its main database Stradalex. There is a fixed subscription price to be paid for every journal, regardless of the usage. Searching in Stradalex is basically always in the full text, but you can limit your search by dates. You will find articles and cases, due to the nature of Belgian law reviews, as explained above. There are limited cross-references in the full texts, some are in PDF, and some are in HTML. Browsing the issues year by year is possible. So in many respects (pricing, searching, browsing, linking), this is quite the opposite policy than that of the Kluwer Jura database. The new search tool of 2010 offers automatic translations and word clouds with related terms.

Older titles start coverage in 1997, but there are quite a number of recently acquired or started journals. In 2010, about 30 journals are online.

Auteurs & Media
Bank- en financieel recht / Droit bancaire et financier
Bank- en financiewezen / Revue bancaire et financière
Droit de la consommation – Consumentenrecht
Droit pénal de l’entreprise
Le droit des affaires / Het ondernemingsrecht
Ius & Actores
Journal de droit fiscal
Journal des tribunaux
Journal de droit européen
JTT (Droit social, Sociaal recht) (bilingual!)
Jurim pratique
Larcier cassation
Nieuw notarieel kwartaalschrift
Recht, religie en samenleving
Rechtspraak Antwerpen Brussel Gent + Cahiers
Revue de droit des technologies de l’information
Revue de l’UCJB (In foro)
Revue de la faculté de droit de l’Université de Liège
Revue de jurisprudence de Liège, Mons et Bruxelles
Revue européenne de droit de la consommation
Revue générale des assurances et des responsabilités
Revue générale du contentieux fiscal
Revue trimestrielle de droit familial
Tijdschrift voor Belgisch handelsrecht / Revue de droit commercial belge
Tijdschrift voor jeugdrecht en kinderrechten
Tijdschrift Estate Planning
Tijdschrift voor fiscaal recht

Jurisquare (Die Keure, Bruylant, Intersentia and other publishers)

This consortium database is quite straightforward: only e-journals, nothing else, unlike Jura and Stradalex that contain a lot more other texts. All texts are in PDF, full text searching is accompanied by other search possibilities like facets. Browsing the issues is quite easy. The pricing of the database implies that you have to pay a normal (printed) subscription for each journal you want to access, apart from a global (small) price for the overall searching without full text access. Journal lists from the participating publishers follow below. The lists do not include some English language titles from these publishers, since they are not concerned with Belgian law and thus not within the scope of this survey.

Die Keure, or La Charte, owns about 15 law reviews, online through Jurisquare.

Ad Rem
Lokale en regionale belastingen
Milieu- en energierecht
Revue de droit pénal et de criminologie
Revue regionale de droit
Tijdschrift van de politierechters / Journal des juges de police
Tijdschrift van de vrederechters / Journal des juges de paix
Tijdschrift voor agrarisch recht / Revue de droit rural
Tijdschrift voor notarissen
Tijdschrift voor onderwijsrecht en onderwijsbeleid
Tijdschrift voor ruimtelijke ordening en stedenbouw
Tijdschrift voor sociaal recht / Revue de droit social
Tijdschrift voor vreemdelingenrecht
Tijdschrift voor wetgeving
Waarvan akte / La basoche belge

Bruylant also owns about 15 Belgian law reviews, online through Jurisquare.

Administration publique
Annales de droit de Louvain
Cahiers de droit européen
Cahiers du juriste – Cahiers van de jurist
Journal de droit fiscal
Journal des procès
Res et jura immobilia
Revue belge de droit constitutionnel
Revue belge de droit international / Belgisch tijdschrift voor internationaal recht
Revue critique de jurisprudence belge
Revue de droit de l’ULB
Revue de droit intellectuel (L’ingénieur conseil) / Tijdschrift intellectueel recht
Revue de droit international et de droit comparé
Revue des affaires européennes
Revue pratique des sociétés civiles et commerciales
Revue trimestrielle des droits de l’homme

Intersentia owns a few Belgian law reviews only (among a number of international journals), online through Jurisquare.

Nullum Crimen: tijdschrift voor strafrecht
Rechtskundig weekblad
Tijdschrift voor bouwrecht en onroerend goed

Journals of other publishers available in Jurisquare are:

Chroniques de droit public / Publiekrechtelijke kronieken (Vanden Broele)
Forum de l’assurance (Anthemis)
Revue belge du dommage corporel et de médecine légale – Belgisch tijdschrift voor lichamelijke schade en gerechtelijke geneeskunde (Anthemis)
Tijdschrift voor Gentse en West-Vlaamse rechtspraak (Story Publishers)

Biblo

Biblo has 3 Belgian law reviews online through its own site Fiscoloog.

Balans / Bilan
Fiscoloog
Tijdschrift voor rechtspersoon en vennootschap

Other journals

The rest of the legal journals come from range of smaller legal publishers and all kinds of organisations and (learned) societies. Some of them have their own websites, with content more or less freely available. Maklu and Politeia have a few journals each, but no general online policy so far. Some of them might join Jurisquare in the future. A shortlist:

Belgisch tijdschrift voor sociale zekerheid / Revue belge de sécurité sociale
Burger, bestuur & beleid (Vanden Broele)
Custodes: cahiers voor politie- en justitievraagstukken (Politeia)
Jaarboek kredietrecht en collectieve schuldenregeling
Journal des droits des jeunes – Jeunesse et droit
Jura falconis (free website but also on Jurisquare)
Limburgs rechtsleven
Notamus
Notarius: tijdschrift voor het notariaat / Notarius: revue pour le notariat
OCMW Visies (Vanden Broele)
Panopticon: tijdschrift voor strafrecht, criminologie en forensisch welzijnswerk (Maklu)
Rechtspraak van de haven van Antwerpen / Jurisprudence du Port d’Anvers
Revue du droit des étrangers
Revue du notariat belge
SupPORT: tijdschrift voor sport & recht, management, beleid & ethiek (Story Publishers)
Tijdschrift IPR – Revue DIP (the only e-only journal, there is no paper version)
Tijdschrift verkoop vastgoed (Maklu)
Tijdschrift voor aannemingsrecht / L’entreprise et le droit
Tijdschrift voor Belgische mededinging – Revue belge de la concurrence (Maklu)
Tijdschrift voor financieel recht (Maklu)
Tijdschrift voor mensenrechten (Politeia)
Tijdschrift voor privaatrecht (quite a special case…)
Vigiles: tijdschrift voor politierecht (Politeia)

Encyclopedias, Series, Forms, Dictionaries and English language introductions

Like France, Belgium has a tradition of comprehensive encyclopedias, covering all the law in keywords. However, these are all at least 50 years old and have not been updated seriously in recent times:

Les Pandectes Belges, Larcier (136 volumes)
Les Novelles – Corpus Juris Belgici, Larcier (25 volumes)
Répertoire Pratique du Droit Belge (RPDB), Bruylant (17+9 volumes)

Also not updated are the few classic treatises (on private law) in several volumes, with the very recent exception of Dekkers:

R. DEKKERS, Handboek burgerlijk recht, 4 vols., 2005-2010, Intersentia
F. LAURENT, Principes de droit civil, 31 vols., 1878, Bruylant
H. DE PAGE, Traité élémentaire de droit civil belge, 10 vols., 1952-1975, +1990 (vol. I), +1997 (vol. IV-1), Bruylant
J. VAN RIJN, Principes de droit commercial, 4 vols., 1976-1988 (Vol 2. 1957), Bruylant
L. FREDERICQ, Handboek Belgisch handelsrecht, 4 vols., 1976-1981, Bruylant

Modern series are numerous, but only a few have gained fame among the public:

Artikelsgewijze Commentaren met Overzicht van Rechtspraak en Rechtsleer, Kluwer (loose-leaf and online via Jura)
Beginselen van Belgisch Privaatrecht (BBPR), Kluwer
Algemene Practische Rechtsverzameling (APR), Kluwer
Répertoire Notarial (RN), Larcier (loose-leaf and online)

Important for legal practice are books with forms (still available in loose-leaf format, but easier access as part of databases):

Algemene Modellenverzameling voor de Rechtspraktijk (AMR), Kluwer (part of Jura)
Recueil Général de Modèles d’Actes (RGMA), Kluwer (part of Jura)
Bijvoorbeeld: Modellen voor het bedrijfsleven, Kluwer ((part of Jura)
C. DE WULF & H. DE DECKER, Het opstellen van notariële akten, 4 volumes, 2002-2007, Kluwer

Legal dictionaries are scarce:

E. DIRIX, P. VAN ORSHOVEN & B. TILLEMAN (ed.), De Valks Juridisch woordenboek, Intersentia, 2004
J. MOORS, Juridisch woordenboek Nederlands-Frans – Dictionnaire juridique Français-Néerlandais, Die Keure, 2006

Some English language introductions to Belgian law:

VAN BAEL & BELLIS, Business Law Guide to Belgium, Kluwer Law International, 2003
H. BOCKEN & W. DE BONDT (ed.), Introduction to Belgian law, Bruylant, 2001

The International Encyclopaedia of Laws, Kluwer, Loose-leaf (general editor R. Blanpain) has some basic treatises in parts of Belgian law in English (most recent are listed first):

R. Blanpain, (Belgium:) Labour law and industrial relations, 2010
J. Van Langendonck, (Belgium:) Social security law, 2008
H. Nys, (Belgium:) Medical law, 2009
K. Geens, (Belgium:) Corporations and partnerships, 2006
J. Stuyck, (Belgium:) Commercial and economic law, 2006
K. Deketelaere, (Belgium:) Environmental law, 2000
J. Herbots, (Belgium:) Contracts, 1998
M. Huybrechts, (Belgium): Transport law, 1994
L. Dupont, (Belgium:) Criminal law, 1993
A. Alen, (Belgium:) Constitutional law, 1992

Treatises, Textbooks and (some) Websites by subject

Writing treatises on the various fields of law is not exactly what most Belgian law professors are keen on. Most of them combine their academic job with legal practice, which leaves no time for writing treatises, let alone updating them. Some branches of law have therefore no recent, more or less comprehensive textbooks, although the situation is getting better. The German tradition of big “commentaries” is non-existant in Belgium, neither is the English tradition of classic treatises with 20 or more editions, e.g. “Chitty on Contracts”. There are only two textbooks with a somewhat longer tradition (more than 10 editions over a period of 30 years): Tiberghien on tax law and Mast on administrative law. Even French doings like the “Juris-Classeur” or “Encyclopédie Dalloz” have no real counterpart in Belgian legal publishing.

However, there are some basic textbooks, and all of them are listed in the bibliographic website. This is the revised new version of what used to be the “(Elementaire) Bibliografie Belgisch Recht”, a bibliography that existed as a booklet and a website at the time until 1999. In Rechtgenoot, you will find the treatises at the top of every subject. It contains now more than 3000 titles, books, journal titles, loose-leafs and databases all together. You can use the classification or search for keywords. Furthermore, it has a list of the best 100 or 250 basic textbooks under the heading “basiswerken”. What follows now is the top 150 as it stands on September 2010. About half of these titles are regularly updated (check the website for new editions). The list starts with public law subjects, followed by civil and commercial law, criminal law, information law, social and tax law, all this in 14 different chapters. Sometimes, an important online resource on the subject is added.

General introductions

M. VAN HOECKE & B. stot het recht, 2009, Acco
G. MARTYN & R. DEVLOO, Een kennismaking met recht en rechtspraktijk Die Keure, 2008
O. CORTEN & A. SCHAUS, Le droit comme idéologie: introduction critique au droit belge, Editions de l’université de Bruxelles, 2010

Constitutional Law and Human Rights

J. VANDE LANOTTE & R. GOEDERTIER, Handboek Belgisch publiekrecht, Die Keure, 2010
M. VAN DAMME, Overzicht van het grondwettelijk recht, Die Keure, 2008
D. BATSELE, T. MORTIER & M. SCARCEZ, Initiation au droit constitutionnel, Bruylant, 2009
M. UYTTENDAELE e.a., Précis de droit constitutionnel belge: regards sur un système institutionnel paradoxal, Bruylant, 2005
A. ALEN, Handboek van het Belgisch staatsrecht, Kluwer, 1995 (new ed. to be published)
F. DELPEREE, Le droit constitutionnel de la Belgique, Bruylant, 2000
W. PAS a.o., De Grondwet geannoteerd, 2002, Die Keure
J. VANDE LANOTTE & Y. HAECK (ed.), Handboek EVRM., Intersentia, 2004-2005
D. DE PRINS & S. SOTTIAUX & J. VRIELINK, Handboek discriminatierecht, Kluwer, 2005

Administrative Law and Public Procurement

A. MAST (J. DUJARDIN, M. VAN DAMME, J. VANDE LANOTTE), Overzicht van het Belgisch administratief recht, Kluwer, 2009
D. BATSELE, T. MORTIER & M. SCARCEZ, Manuel de droit administratif, Bruylant, 2010
M. LEROY, Contentieux administratif, Bruylant, 2008
D. D’HOOGHE (ed.), De gunning van overheidsopdrachten, Die Keure, 2009

Environmental and Planning Law

L. LAVRYSEN, Handboek milieurecht, Kluwer, 2010
K. DEKETELAERE (ed.), Handboek milieurecht, Die Keure, 2005
B. HUBEAU & W. VANDEVYVERE (ed.), Handboek ruimtelijke ordening en stedenbouw, Die Keure, 2004
F. HAUMONT, Urbanisme et environnement, Bruylant, 2007
J. NEURAY, Droit de l’environnement, Bruylant, 2001

Medical Law

H. NYS, Geneeskunde: recht en medisch handelen, Kluwer, 2005
G. GENICOT, Droit médical et biomédical, Larcier, 2010

Procedural Law

J. LAENENS, K. BROECKX, D. SCHEERS, Handboek gerechtelijk recht, Intersentia, 2008
G. DE LEVAL, Eléments de procédure civile, Larcier, 2005
M. CASTERMANS, Gerechtelijk privaatrecht: algemene beginselen, bevoegdheid en burgerlijke rechtspleging, Academia Press, 2009
D. MOUGENOT, Principes de droit judiciaire privé Larcier, 2009

Expertise, Seizure and Arbitration

P. LURQUIN, Traité de l’expertise en toutes matières, Bruylant, 1985
T. LYSENS & L. NAUDTS, Deskundigenonderzoek in burgerlijke zaken, Kluwer, 2005
E. DIRIX & K. BROECKX, Beslag, Kluwer, 2010
G. KEUTGEN & G.A. DAL, L’arbitrage en droit belge et international. Tome 1. Le droit belge, Bruylant, 2006

Private International Law

F. RIGAUX, Droit international privé, Larcier, 2005
J. ERAUW, Handboek Belgisch internationaal privaatrecht, Kluwer, 2009
M. PERTEGAS SENDER & P. WAUTELET a.o. (ed.), Het wetboek internationaal privaatrecht becommentarieerd – Le code de droit international privé commenté, Intersentia, 2006
C.-L. CLOSSET & B. RENAULD, Traité de la nationalité en droit belge, Larcier, 2004

Civil Law (general)

H. DE PAGE & R. DEKKERS, Traité élémentaire de droit civil belge, 10 vols., Bruylant, 1957-1973
R. DEKKERS, Handboek burgerlijk recht, 4 vols., Intersentia, 2005-2010

Obligations and Contracts

P. VAN OMMESLAGHE, Droit des obligations, 3 vols, 2010
W. VAN GERVEN & S. COVEMAEKER, Verbintenissenrecht, Acco, 2006
P. WERY, Droit des obliagtions 1. Théorie générale du contrat, Larcier, 2010
L. CORNELIS, Algemene theorie van de verbintenis, Intersentia, 2000
H. DE PAGE (A. MEINERTZHAGEN-LIMPENS), Traité élémentaire de droit civil, Tome 4: Les principaux contrats (première partie), Volume 1, Bruylant, 1997
B. TILLEMAN, Overeenkomsten 2. Bijzondere overeenkomsten, C. Bruikleen, bewaargeving en sekwester, Kluwer, 2000
H. D’UDEKEM D’ACOZ & I.+M. SNICK, De pachtovereenkomst, Larcier, 2010
R. DEKKERS & A. VERBEKE, Handboek burgerlijk recht. Deel III: Verbintenissen, gebruikelijke contracten en bewijslast, Intersentia, 2008
G. BENOIT, I. DURANT, P.A. FORIERS e.a. (ed.), Le droit commun du bail, Die Keure, 2006
G. BENOIT, C. DELFORGE, P. JADOUL e.a. (ed), Le bail commercial, Die Keure, 2008
P. BESELAERE, O. LENAERTS, B. TILLEMAN & A. VERBEKE (ed.), Handboek leasing, Die Keure, 2007

Torts

T. VANSWEEVELT & B. WEYTS, Handboek buitencontractueel aansprakelijkheidsrecht, Intersentia, 2009
L. CORNELIS, Beginselen van het Belgische buitencontractuele aansprakelijkheidsrecht. Deel 1. De onrechtmatige daad, Bruylant / Maklu, 1989
L. CORNELIS, Principes du droit belge de la responsabilité extra-contractuelle. 1. L’acte illicite, Bruylant / Maklu, 1992
D. SIMOENS, Buitencontractuele aansprakelijkheid. Deel 2: Schade en schadeloosstelling, Kluwer, 1999

Construction Law

K. DEKETELAERE & M. SCHOUPS & A. VERBEKE (ed.), Handboek Bouwrecht, Intersentia, 2004

Property and Trust Law

F. VAN NESTE, Zakenrecht. 1: Goederen, bezit en eigendom, Kluwer, 1990
H. VANDENBERGHE & S. SNAET, Zakenrecht 3: Mede-eigendom, Kluwer, 1997
S. STIJNS & H. VUYE, Zakenrecht 4: Burenhinder, Kluwer, 2000
R. DEKKERS & E. DIRIX, Handboek burgerlijk recht. Deel II: Zakenrecht, zekerheden, verjaring, Intersentia, 2005
F. T’KINT, Sûretés et principes généraux du droit de poursuite des créanciers, Larcier, 2004
E. DIRIX & R. DE CORTE, Zekerheidsrechten, Kluwer, 2006
R. TIMMERMANS, Handboek appartementsrecht, Kluwer, 2008

Family and Youth Law

P. SENAEVE, Compendium van het personen- en familierecht, Acco, 2008
Y.-H. LELEU, Droit des personnes et des familles, Larcier, 2005
J. GERLO & G. VERSCHELDEN, Handboek voor familierecht, Die Keure, 2008
A.-Ch. VAN GYSEL (ed.) Précis de droit de la famille, Bruylant, 2009
R. DEKKERS & A. WYLLEMAN, Handboek burgerlijk recht. Deel I: Personen- en familierecht, Intersentia, 2009
J. PUT, Handboek jeugdbeschermingsrecht, Die Keure, 2006
F. TULKENS & T. MOREAU, Droit de la jeunesse: aide, assistance, protection, Larcier, 2000

Family Property Law

W. PINTENS, Ch. DECLERCK, J. DU MONGH & K. VANWINCKELEN, Familiaal vermogensrecht, Intersentia, 2010
Ph. DE PAGE, Le régime matrimonial, Bruylant, 2008
Ch. VAN GYSEL (ed.), Précis du droit des successions et des libéralités, Bruylant, 2008
P. DELNOY, Les libéralités et les successions: précis de droit civil, Larcier, 2009
R. DEKKERS & H. CASMAN, Handboek burgerlijk recht. Deel IV: Huwelijksstelsels, erfrechten en giften, Intersentia, 2010

Commercial and Insolvency Law

E. DIRIX & Y. MONTANGIE & H. VANHEES, Handels- en economisch recht in hoofdlijnen, Intersentia, 2008
K. VAN HULLE & N. LYBAERT, Boekhoud- en jaarrekeningrecht, Die Keure, 2010
S. CLAEYS, Franchising, Die Keure, 2009
K. BYTTEBIER, E. DIRIX, M. TISON & M. VANMEENEN (ed.), Gerechtelijke reorganisatie: getest, gewikt en gewogen, Intersentia, 2010
H. BRAECKMANS, H. COUSY, E. DIRIX e.a. (ed.), Curatoren en vereffenaars: actuele ontwikkelingen I + II, Intersentia, 2006-2010
I. VEROUGSTRAETE, Manuel de la faillite et du concordat (+ Formulaire), Kluwer, 2003
C. JASSOGNE & G. BLOCK (ed.), Traité pratique de droit commercial (5 vols.), Kluwer, 1990
J. VAN RIJN, Principes de droit commercial, 4 vols. (Vol 2. 1957), Bruylant, 1976

Company Law

J. MALHERBE & Ph. LAMBRECHT & Ph. MALHERBE, Droit des sociétés: précis (droit communautaire, droit belge), Bruylant, 2009
F. BOUCKAERT, Notarieel vennootschapsrecht: NV en BVBA (2 delen), Kluwer, 2000
T. TILQUIN & V. SIMONART, Traité des sociétés, (3 vols), Kluwer, 1996-2005
D. VAN GERVEN, Rechtspersonen 1: Rechtspersonen in het algemeen, verenigingen, stichtingen en publiekrechtelijke rechtspersonen, Kluwer, 2007
Info-base – Company information

Insurance Law

L. SCHUERMANS, Grondslagen van het Belgisch verzekeringsrecht, Intersentia, 2008
M. FONTAINE, Droit des assurances, Larcier, 2010

Competition, Fair Trade Law and Consumer law

D. VANDERMEERSCH, De mededingingswet, Kluwer, 2007
R. STEENNOT, Handboek consumentenbescherming en handelspraktijken, Intersentia, 2007
E. TERRYN (ed.), Handboek consumentenkrediet, Die Keure, 2007
W. VAN GERVEN e.a. (ed.), Handels- en economisch recht 2. Mededingingsrecht B. Kartelrecht, Kluwer, 1996
J. STUYCK, Handels en economisch recht 2. Mededingingsrecht A. Handelspraktijken, Kluwer, 2003

Financial Law

G. SCHRANS & R. STEENNOT, Algemeen deel van het financieel recht, Intersentia, 2003
C. JASSOGNE & G. BLOCK (ed.), TPDC 5: Droit bancaire et financier, Kluwer, 2003-2007

Intellectual Property and Information law

D. KAESMACHER (ed.), Les droits intellectuals (RN 2/5), Larcier, 2007
M.C. JANSSENS & F. GOTZEN, Wegwijs in het intellectueel eigendomsrecht, Vanden Broele, 2009
F. BRISON & H. VANHEES (ed.), De Belgische Auteurswet: artikelsgewijze commentaar – La loi belge sur le droit d’auteur: commentaire article par article, Larcier, 2008
A. BERENBOOM, Le nouveau droit d’auteur et les droits voisins, Larcier, 2008
A. BRAUN & E. CORNU, Précis des marques (loi uniforme Benelux, droit belge, droit international, droit communautaire), Larcier, 2009
Y. VAN COUTER & B. VANBRABANT, Handboek licentieovereenkomsten, Larcier, 2008
D. VOORHOOF, Handboek mediarecht, Larcier, 2007
J. DUMORTIER, ICT-recht, Acco, 2010

Criminal Law

C. VAN DEN WYNGAERT, Strafrecht, strafprocesrecht en internationaal strafrecht (in hoofdlijnen), Maklu, 2006
D. VANDERMEERSCH, Eléments de droit pénal et de procédure pénale, Die Keure, 2009
F. KUTY, Principes généraux du droit pénal belge, 2 vols, Larcier, 2009-2010
A. DE NAUW, Inleiding tot het bijzonder strafrecht, Kluwer, 2010
M.-A. BEERNAERT, H.-D. BOSLY e.a., Les infractions contre les personnes, Larcier, 2010
M.-A. BEERNAERT, H.-D. BOSLY e.a., Les infractions contre les biens, Larcier, 2008
J. SPREUTELS, F. ROGGEN, E.R. FRANCE, Droit pénal des affaires, Bruylant, 2005
T. AFSCHRIFT & V.-A. DE BROUWERE, Manuel de droit pénal financier, Kluwer, 2001
L. HUYBRECHTS, Fiscaal strafrecht, Kluwer, 2002
M. FAURE & J. VANHEULE, Milieustrafrecht, Kluwer, 2006
F. LAGASSE, Manuel de droit pénal social, Larcier, 2003

Criminal Procedure

M. FRANCHIMONT, A. JACOBS & A. MASSET, Manuel de procédure pénale, Larcier, 2009
R. DECLERCQ, Beginselen van strafrechtspleging, Kluwer, 2007
R. VERSTRAETEN, Handboek Strafvordering, Maklu, 2007
H.-D. BOSLY & D. VANDERMEERSCH, Droit de la procédure pénale, Die Keure, 2008

Social Law

M. COPPENS, Handboek sociaal recht, Story Publishers, 2010
J. PETIT, Sociaal procesrecht, Die Keure, 2007
Y. JORENS (ed.), Handboek Europese detachering en vrij verkeer van diensten, Die Keure, 2009

Labour Law

W. VAN EECKHOUTTE, Sociaal compendium: Arbeidsrecht met fiscale notities, Kluwer, yearly ed.
W. VAN EECKHOUTTE, Compendium social: Droit du travail contenant des notations fiscales, Kluwer, yearly ed.
P. HUMBLET & M. RIGAUX (ed.), Synopsis van het Belgisch arbeidsrecht, Intersentia, 2009
P. HUMBLET & M. RIGAUX (ed.), Aperçu du droit du travail belge, Bruylant, 2004

Social Security Law

W. VAN EECKHOUTTE, Sociaal compendium: Sociale Zekerheidsrecht met fiscale notities, Kluwer, yearly ed.
J. VAN LANGENDONCK & J. PUT, Handboek Socialezekerheidsrecht, Intersentia, 2006
J. PETIT, Arbeidsongevallen, Kluwer, 2005
D. ADRIAENS e.a., Praktisch handboek voor OCMW-recht, Die Keure, 2010
D. SIMOENS, Handboek OCMW-dienstverlening, Die Keure, 2009

Tax Law

A. TIBERGHIEN & R. DEBLAUWE & K. VANDUYSEN, Handboek voor fiscaal recht, Larcier, yearly ed.
A. TIBERGHIEN & R. DEBLAUWE & K. VANDUYSEN, Manuel de droit fiscal, Larcier, yearly ed.
J. COUTURIER & B. PEETERS, Belgisch belastingrecht in hoofdlijnen, Maklu, 2010
M. DASSESSE & P. MINNE, Droit fiscal: principes généraux et impôts sur les revenus, Larcier, 2001
P. VANDENDRIESSCHE & W. DEVROE (ed.), Handboek BTW, Die Keure, 2007
F. WERDEFROY & A. MAYEUR, Registratierechten, Kluwer, 2009
J. DECUYPER & J. RUYSSEVELDT, Successierechten, Kluwer, 2008
P. VANHOUTE, Belgium in international tax planning, 2004, IBFD
J. KIRKPATRICK, Le régime fiscal des sociétés en Belgique, Bruylant, 2003

Legal Links, Legal Profession, Legal Publishers, Legal Education, Journal Abbreviations

Rechts Links is a portal with legal websites for Belgian lawyers, with a search facility. It has a national part (left side of the screen) and an international part (right side of the screen). The left side can be considered as a list of most legal Belgian websites, useful for people looking for Belgian law on the web. However, since the classification is in Dutch, this translation of the basic topics might help:

“Overheid”: this is a list of official websites
“Organisaties-Thematisch”: these are links of specific organisations by subject
“E-tijdschriften: this is a list of Belgian legal e-journals
“Juridische Beroepen”: these are links concerning the legal profession in Belgium, including a list of law firms
“Rechtsfaculteiten”: this is a list of Belgian law schools
“Juridische Uitgevers”: this is a list of Belgian legal publishers

Rechtsaf lists all abbreviations used for Belgian legal journals, with a search facility.

Source - PTI

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