Belgium

05/11/1997

1 Conscription

conscription does not exist

Conscription was suspended on 31 December 1992 by amending the 1962 Law on Conscription, which became applicable only to conscripts drafted in 1993 and earlier. In practice this meant that the law no longer applied to those born in 1975 and later. Since 1 March 1995 the Belgian armed forces consist of professional volunteers only. [4]

Conscription is not enshrined in the Constitution.

2 Conscientious objection

The 1980 Law on Conscientious Objection is now obsolete. On 31 December 1992 it was amended so that it became applicable only to conscripts drafted in 1993 and earlier. [2] [4]

There is no legal provision for professional soldiers developing a conscientious objection.

On 26 September 1995 peace organisations proposed to amend the Constitution to include the right to conscientious objection. This proposal was rejected.

3 Desertion

No information available.

5 History

Belgium was one of the last Western European countries to pass a law on conscientious objection in 1965. In the 90s there were about 2,500 CO applications per year, about 98 percent of which were granted (partly due to the fact that since 1989 individual examinations by a board did not take place). [2]

Conscription was suspended following the so-called 3 July 1992 Delcroix bill, a plan to reform the Belgian armed forces. Delcroix claimed that it indicated a "redistribution of the peace dividend after the fall of the Berlin wall" and that conscription was no longer needed given the changed role of the Belgian armed forces following the end of the Cold War.

The abolition was achieved quite fast by means of three consecutive reductions of length of military service between 1990 and 1993 followed by a general pardon. The length of military service was reduced from to 12 to 11 months in 1991, to 10 months in 1992 and to 8 months in 1993. In the same years the substitute service in health and public safety bodies was curtailed from 16 to 10 months and in the social, cultural and youth sector from 20 to 12 months. In the 90s only about 50 percent of conscripts actually performed military service, the others were exempted for one reason or another. [1] [2]

Although there has been no general amnesty for those who evaded the draft or deserted before conscription ended, the military attorney general (krijgsauditeur) seems to have tried to deal with a number of cases administratively. If the desertion or draft evasion was not compounded by other crimes, the sentences were as a rule conditional. [3]

6 Annual statistics

The armed forces comprise 45,000 troops (which is 0.45 percent of the population).

In 1992 the armed forces consisted of about 80,000 troops, including some 30,000 conscripts. [1]

The last conscript draft in 1993 listed 61,545 conscripts. From these, only 19,676 performed military service and 737 performed substitute service in the period between 1 January 1993 and 28 February 1995. [4]

Sources

[1] Schmid, G. 1994. Wehr- und Zivildienst in Europäischen Ländern, Informationen, Analysen, Unterrichtbausteine. Wochenschau Verlag, Schwalbach. [2] Gouault, J. 1995. Service National, quelle options? Serie POUR Avec. GREP Editions/UNESCO, Paris. [3] Vandersmissen, M. 1995. 'Zachtere hand voor deserteurs', in: Het Nieuwsblad, 14 June 1995. [4] Directie Gewetensbezwaarden 1996. Reply to CONCODOC questionnaire.

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