Ghent Court Orders Belgian State to Transfer Interned Person
A court in Ghent has ordered the Belgian state to urgently arrange the admission of an interned person who has been held in prison for over five years to a suitable care institution, delivering a sweeping judicial rebuke of the government’s decades-long failure to provide adequate psychiatric care. The Court of First Instance of East Flanders (Ghent division) gave the state 30 days to comply, warning of a daily penalty of €250, up to a maximum of €250,000, if it fails to do so, according to VRT NWS.
The Case
The plaintiff is an interned person who has been held since 27 April 2021 in Ghent prison’s “Afdeling Bescherming Maatschappij” (Society Protection Division), a unit that provides only limited psychiatric care. Internment is a security measure applied to individuals who have committed offenses but are deemed not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. Under Belgium’s Internment Law of 2014, these individuals should receive care in specialized institutions, not prisons.
The interned person initiated an urgent summary proceeding (kort geding) asking the court to compel the Belgian state to place him in an institution adapted to his specific care needs. The official court press release confirmed that the Belgian state did not dispute that the man had been denied the required care for five years.
A Systemic Failure
The court went beyond the individual case to condemn the Belgian state’s structural failure. “It is established that the Belgian State has been aware for years of the structural violations of the human rights of interned persons,” the ruling stated, as reported by VRT NWS. The court explicitly rejected the state’s argument of force majeure due to capacity shortages, declaring that “the Belgian State has been failing in this for decades.”
The ruling is firmly grounded in the European Convention on Human Rights, citing a landmark 2016 pilot judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Rooman v. Belgium, which found that Belgium structurally violates Articles 3 (prohibition of inhuman treatment) and 5 (right to liberty) of the convention. As Strasbourg Observers noted in a 2024 analysis, the ECHR has repeatedly classified Belgium’s internment policy as “systematically and structurally dysfunctional.”
The Scale of the Crisis
As of 15 June 2026, there were 1,076 interned persons in Belgian prisons who should not be there, according to the most recent figures cited in the ruling. By 29 January 2026, the number stood at 1,107, as reported by Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health Frank Vandenbroucke.
A joint report published in June 2025 by Unia (Belgium’s human rights institution) and the CTRG (Central Supervisory Council for Prisons) documented severe shortages in care staff, undignified living conditions, and a security-over-care philosophy in Belgian prisons. The report, which issued 87 recommendations, found that in some facilities, a single psychiatrist working only a few hours per week was responsible for 100 to 200 patients. As Unia reported, interned persons often spend most of their day in cells, lack therapeutic activities, and face punitive measures such as isolation.
International Pressure Mounts
The ruling comes amid intensifying international pressure on Belgium. In April 2026, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted an interim resolution urging Belgium to resolve the structural problem of prolonged detention of internees in prison without adequate care. This followed years of non-compliance with ECHR rulings dating back to 2016.
The Belgian government has invested in building Forensic Psychiatric Centers (FPCs) in Paifve (250 places), Waver (250 places), and Aalst (120 places), with a first closed FPC under construction in Ghent. However, critics argue these high-security facilities only serve a limited population and do not address the need for open, community-based care. Els Keytsman, Director of Unia, stated: “We primarily advocate for their access to open outpatient or residential care, where patient autonomy is stimulated. High-security care institutions, such as the forensic psychiatric centers, only offer a solution for a limited group of interned persons.”
What’s Next
The Belgian state can appeal the ruling, but the court’s strong language and the existing ECHR jurisprudence make a successful appeal challenging. If the state complies, it must find a suitable placement within 30 days — a significant challenge given the chronic capacity shortage. If it does not comply, it faces accumulating penalties of up to €250,000.
Legal experts suggest this ruling could open the door for other interned persons to file similar urgent summary proceedings, potentially creating a cascade of court orders that force systemic change. As the AVS regional broadcaster reported, the court emphasized that “with each additional day of detention, the damage to the plaintiff increases.”
The question remains whether this judicial intervention will catalyze genuine reform or simply be appealed and delayed. What is clear is that the judicial branch is no longer willing to accept the status quo, and the pressure on the Belgian government — from courts, European institutions, and human rights organizations — is intensifying.