Belgium: New intelligence services Bill
01 March 1995
The new bill on the Belgian intelligence services was presented by Prime Minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene, and Minister of Justice, Melchior Wathelet, on Friday 3 March. Once the bill is accepted by parliament, it will result in a legal framework which closely resembles the Dutch model, including a ministerial commission, the Conseil Ministeriel du Renseignement et de la Securite (CMRS) and its executive arm, the College du Renseignement et de la Securite (CRS). The bill has adopted most of the recommendations made by the intelligence oversight committee in its recent and first annual report. It will cover both the civilian Surete d'Etat, which recently moved into its new headquarters on 150 Boulevard Emile Jacquemain in Northern Brussels, and the military Intelligence Service, which was recently renamed the Service General du Renseignement et de Securite (SGRS).
A new provision in the bill will allow other government agencies to pass information to the Surete, although the providing service retains the right to refuse such cooperation. Special powers such as telephone tapping remain out of bounds for the intelligence services, although the interception of radiomagnetic transmissions is explicitly permitted. Also the bill explicitly states that the services will have to operate within the limits of the law under all circumstances. A rather unusual role for a west European intelligence service will be the provision of armed bodyguard services to selected VIPs.
Oversight Committee
The Permanent Committee for Oversight of the Intelligence Services or "Komitee-I" for short, recently brought out its first report on the state and activities of the civilian Surete d'Etat and the military Service. This report, which covers the period of May 1993 to June 1994, gives the impression of the Belgian services as being greatly restricted and reluctant to use any of the intrusive measures that usually characterize intelligence work. According to guidelines referred to in the report, "infiltrations of certain groups may not be carried out by members of the services themselves" (implying that informants have to do this kind of work) and that surveillance operations were restricted to public spaces and always respected the constitutional immunity of the home. Although the Surete, which comes under the Ministry of Justice, has no branches or sources of its own in other countries, it has been admitted that the service does seek and receive information from Belgian nationals residing or travelling abroad.
It should be noted that the Committee appears to be satisfied with repeating the services' own statements on these issues with no verification of its own. Intelligence oversight in Belgium is organized under the 1991 Intelligence and Police Services Oversight Law, which established a formally independent committee instead of a parliamentary body. The House of Representatives does have a commission to maintain contacts with the Oversight Committee.