Following receipt of the Council of State's opinion on the PS-Ecolo-PTB draft decree, Minister-President Pierre-Yves Jeholet and Minister for Higher Education Françoise Bertieaux do not wish to personally sanction and enact a text whose vote is considered illegal by the Council of State itself.
“We had committed to ensuring that the sanctioning/enactment of the PS-Ecolo-PTB text would take place before the end of the legislature, in order to respect the vote that took place in Parliament. But we also wanted the Council of State to be able to logically and lawfully issue its opinion beforehand. The PS, Ecolo and PTB wanted to bypass this request for an opinion and rushed to vote on this text. Today, the Council of State calls them to order and highlights the illegality of this vote. We do not wish to take part in this denial of democracy and we will not sanction/enact the text ourselves. As a result, we consider ourselves prevented from taking part in the government session whose agenda includes this sanctioning/enactment, believing that it is up to those members of the Government whose MPs took part in the violation of the coordinated laws on the Council of State to take on, if they so wish, the sanctioning and enactment of this text. “When we became Ministers, we swore an oath to “respect the Constitution and the laws of the Belgian people”. We cannot therefore go back on our oath by sanctioning and enacting a text for which the MPs who voted for it knowingly and repeatedly flouted the law”, explain Françoise Bertieaux and Pierre-Yves Jeholet.
This is why they are invoking Article 23 of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Government's operating decree, which provides that in the event of absence or incapacity, a Minister may appoint another government member and delegate to them the power to sanction and enact this draft decree.
To students, Pierre-Yves Jeholet and Françoise Bertieaux have just one message: “Please keep working to pass as many credits as possible, as if this draft decree did not exist! Legal uncertainty is more present than ever and we cannot guarantee that appeals will not be lodged with the Constitutional Court or by students who feel disadvantaged by the unequal treatment caused by this reform. And during this particularly stressful exam period, we encourage students to continue their efforts and warmly thank the academic staff who, despite all this turmoil, continue to support them calmly.”
Two serious failings by Parliament identified by the Council of State:
- Violation of the coordinated laws on the Council of State, rendering the vote on the PS-Ecolo-PTB draft decree illegal
This “saga” surrounding the Paysage decree has been marked by a whole series of breaches of rules and laws by PS-Ecolo-PTB. For example, the rules of procedure of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Parliament, by refusing the second reading in Committee, or the principles of equality and non-discrimination enshrined in the Constitution.
By deciding not to wait for the Council of State's opinion, and to continue examining and voting on their draft decree, PS-Ecolo-PTB simply made it impossible for the Council of State to rule on the substance. All this based on Article 55 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure, which the Council of State now explains was interpreted incorrectly and in contradiction with the coordinated laws on the Council of State
- Failure to comply with the request from one third of Parliament to consult the Council of State
The MR and Les Engagés had explicitly requested that the Council of State be consulted on documents 730/1 and 730/4. However, the President of Parliament did not comply with this request and only consulted the Council of State on document 730/1, namely the unamended PS-Ecolo draft decree (the moratorium) and not as it was voted on in Committee.
“Because of all these irregularities, the Council of State was unable to rule on the substance or clarify the grey areas of the text… This completely prevents us from being reassured about the legal security of the mechanism. Worse still, the uncertainty is even greater given the accumulation of irregularities committed throughout the process and highlighted by the Council of State. The academic staff, like the students, will unfortunately have to deal with this uncertainty. And it is pitiful to see PS-Ecolo-PTB continuing to flout our laws, twisting the Council of State's opinion to say things it does not say at all, in order to puff themselves up on social media and continue lying to students for electoral purposes”, lament Françoise Bertieaux and Pierre-Yves Jeholet.