If vigilance and prevention must be appropriate in the current context of troubled time, the Belgian government must take responsibility to meet the legitimate need for security of the population.

It is equally important that these measures do not impinge disproportionately on citizens' freedoms undermining basic rights and principles that guarantee the rule of law.

In this sense, the measures against terrorism, endorsed by the House, do not fully meet this delicate but important balance. Let's consider the three measures that have been passed.

Extension of the list of terrorist offenses

The House has created new criminal offenses, namely to penalize people entering or leaving Belgium to participate in terrorist acts. These new offenses seem more like political posturing than a real addition to security and criminal policy.

Indeed, as noted by the State Council in its opinion, it seems that these offenses do not bring added value in the fight against terrorism, and this behavior is already covered by other terrorist offenses (membership to a group, recruitment attempt, provocation, etc.).

Expansion of withdrawal of nationality

This measure was probably the worst answer to be given for two reasons. Firstly, because it risks creating two distinct categories of Belgian citizens: those whose citizenship can never be withdrawn and those that can lose it at any time.

This measure goes against this "living together" that the government has called for. It creates a divide, an unequal treatment of citizens based on their origins and transforms the "new Belgians" in second-class citizens.

This measure undermines the inclusion of new Belgians and children born in Belgium when parents are foreigners or residents for short period of time. It therefore seems particularly exclusionary and even less useful and vexatious because it affects almost none of the people who visited the Middle East to fight.

Secondly, and LDH joined on this point the opinion of magistrates specialized in the fight against terrorism, because the withdrawal of nationality is counter productive in the context of an effective fight against terrorism. This will prevent people who may still be reintegrated into our society to return home, but it will never prevent a person who intends to commit a terrorist act to come back to the country.

In contrast, the last category of people, who are a real threat to the security of citizens, will disappear from view more easily and it will be more difficult to monitor or intercept these individuals. This demonstrates that the Belgian government is more interested in communication efficiency than in the fight against terrorism.

Withdrawal of identity documents

The Belgian League of Human Rights (LDH) insists that these measures must respect the rights of individuals and legal procedures. In other words, while the government provides that these measures can be taken by security and interior ministers on the reasoned opinion of OCAM (Coordinating Body for threat analysis that sets terrorist alert level in Belgium), the LDH considers that they should always be preceded by a prior control by an independent and impartial judge and followed by ex post control by opening the right to appeal in order to assess the legitimacy of the decision.

This judicial procedure should also take into account the major or minor quality of the citizen concerned. From that point of view, the absence of any reference to the court proceedings in the text adopted by Parliament does not seem satisfactory.

The troubling context should in no case allow a further extension of the indiscriminate derogation of the common law. A long-awaited assessment of the country's anti-terror laws should be taken up by the House.