When Justice Arrives Too Late: Belgium’s Domestic Violence Dilemma

In a Brussels courtroom last week, a couple sat side by side, speaking quietly. To an outside observer, they might have appeared united. But the man, Ivan, was the defendant, charged with strangling his wife and kicking their six-year-old daughter. The woman, Adriana, was the victim. And the violence in question occurred nearly five years ago.

This is the case at the heart of a poignant report by La Libre Belgique, which exposes a painful truth about the Belgian justice system: by the time domestic violence cases reach court, life has often moved on, leaving judges with an almost impossible dilemma.

A History of Violence, A Story of Reconciliation

The couple’s history is long and troubled. Married in an arranged marriage in 2012, Ivan was first involved in a domestic violence case as early as 2015. They divorced in 2017, only to reconcile under family pressure. Then, on 6 November 2021, Adriana was hospitalized with a severe hematoma on her leg. Ivan was arrested for strangulation, death threats, and throwing her to the ground. Their daughter Juliana, then six years old, told authorities: “He hits mommy.”

Yet when the case finally came to court in May 2026 — nearly five years later — the couple had reconciled. They live together, run a cleaning business together, and Adriana is pregnant with Ivan’s child. Both expressed a desire to “forget the past.”

“I regret what happened,” Ivan told the court, as reported by La Libre. “For me, it’s forgotten. We shouldn’t be in court.” Adriana echoed the sentiment: “A lot of things happened. Thank God, we forgot them as quickly as possible.”

The Prosecutor’s Dilemma

The public prosecutor acknowledged that the investigation time was “not reasonable” — the case, though simple, had remained dormant. The prosecution recognized the facts were established but struggled with how to sanction them given the passage of time.

The defense lawyer captured the central tension perfectly: “At a certain point, the time of sanction is overtaken by the reality of life.”

This is not an isolated problem. According to RTBF, nearly 65,000 domestic violence cases were brought before Belgian courts in 2023 — approximately 12% of all incoming cases nationwide. The sheer volume “explains the fact that they are processed sometimes several years after the victim filed a complaint.”

Systemic Failures and Reform Efforts

The Ivan and Adriana case highlights a deeper structural issue. When the justice system is too slow, it risks becoming irrelevant. If cases that take years to process result in minimal sanctions, there is little deterrent effect for perpetrators who can simply wait out the system.

Belgium has recognized this problem. In 2022, then-Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne announced the recruitment of 15 specialized criminologists to work within prosecutors’ offices to improve handling of domestic violence cases, as RTBF reported.

Specialized court chambers have also been established. The 66th Chamber of the Brussels Court of First Instance, dedicated exclusively to intrafamily violence, aims to reduce the “sometimes very long time of justice.” In Charleroi, a Domestic Violence Chamber launched in January 2024 features a unique model where sentencing is suspended during a one-year monitoring period.

Research by criminologist Charlotte Vanneste at the National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology underscores the stakes: authors of domestic violence who complete the Praxis rehabilitation program have only a 1 in 5 chance of reoffending within two years. Those sentenced to fines or prison have a 54% recidivism rate — more than one in two reoffend.

The Unanswered Questions

As the court prepares to deliver its verdict on 1 June 2026, profound questions remain. Does reconciliation erase the crime? Is the victim’s forgiveness sufficient when domestic violence is also a crime against public order? And what of Juliana, the child who witnessed the violence and whose statement — “He hits mommy” — echoes far beyond the courtroom?

The judge reportedly raised an eyebrow when Ivan described the couple as “separated but living together” while Adriana is pregnant. That raised eyebrow may be the most honest response of all — a recognition that in cases like this, there are no easy answers, only the painful gap between the law’s timeline and the messy, complicated reality of human life.