Belgian MP Escapes Speeding Penalty via Immunity

A federal member of Belgium’s Chamber of Representatives has escaped a driving ban and fine for a serious speeding offense after an appeal court ruled that prosecutors had failed to lift his parliamentary immunity before pursuing the case. Alain Yzermans, a Vooruit lawmaker who also serves as mayor of Houthalen-Helchteren, had accumulated 112 speeding tickets over roughly eight to ten years, according to Belgian media, yet faced sanction only once — and even that conviction was annulled.

The Offense and the Broken Procedure

On 17 October 2024, a speed camera in the Limburg city of Genk recorded Yzermans driving 97 km/h in a 50 km/h zone; the reading was corrected to 91 km/h. As VRT NWS reported, the Genk police court convicted him in July 2025 and imposed a 21-day driving ban, a 600-euro fine, an obligation to retake the theory driving exam, and 320 euros in legal costs.

The conviction did not hold. Yzermans’ defense subsequently noted that his parliamentary immunity had never been formally lifted. The Public Prosecutor’s Office (Parket) in Limburg acknowledged an administrative procedural error and itself appealed to the Court of First Instance to correct the situation. The appeal court instead ruled the prosecution inadmissible.

“The appeal judge ruled that this person is parliamentary immune, and that therefore the prosecution lapses,” Luc De Cleir, spokesperson for the Court of First Instance in Limburg, said, per VRT NWS. “First the immunity must be lifted by parliament. That did not happen here. Therefore the judge cannot rule on the merits of the case.”

The prosecutor’s office had argued that the offense fell under the “heterdaad” (caught-in-the-act) exception, which would have allowed prosecution without a prior immunity waiver. The court rejected that argument: nearly six months elapsed between the offense on 17 October 2024 and the summons on 8 April 2025, so the facts could no longer be considered current. The earlier conviction was annulled, the fine and driving ban were voided, and 47.08 euros in procedural costs were charged to the Belgian State. The ruling was handed down in June 2026 but only became publicly known on 16 September 2026.

A Pattern of Fines Never Reaching a Judge

The case’s most striking element is not the annulled conviction but the sheer volume of prior offenses. Yzermans accumulated 112 speeding tickets over roughly eight to ten years, mostly minor infractions captured by traffic cameras. VRT and Wikipedia state the offenses span about eight years (2018 to 2026), while De Morgen reports a period of about ten years — a minor discrepancy in the reporting.

That accumulation reflects how Belgium’s traffic-fine system is designed, not a failure unique to Yzermans. Minor offenses are processed automatically through immediate fines and out-of-court settlements, never reaching a prosecutor. Only when an offense is serious enough to be taken to police court does a prosecutor see the dossier — and only then do all previous, never-prosecuted facts become visible.

“If we processed those minor offenses in the classic way, we’d get hundreds of those less serious offenses having to be handled by the court. That is not feasible in terms of workload,” Ariane Braccio, a judge at the Beringen police court, explained, according to VRT NWS.

Yzermans’ Response

In a written reaction to VRT NWS, Yzermans stressed that he had wanted to be treated like any other citizen. “Above all I want to emphasize that I wanted to be tried as an ordinary citizen. That’s why I myself did not appeal. I was prepared to accept the ruling from day one, because I deeply regret my mistake,” he said.

Speaking to regional broadcaster TVL, he acknowledged his exemplary role and said a recent cancer diagnosis had kept him out of action for much of the past year. He added that he would voluntarily follow a training course to demonstrate sincerity. “Fighting for road safety as mayor starts with myself,” he said.

What Immunity Is For

Parliamentary immunity dates to Belgium’s 1831 Constitution. Its purpose, scholars stress, is institutional rather than personal. “It is not so much a privilege for parliamentarians, but a way to protect parliament from interference by the judiciary,” Jan Theunis, a professor of constitutional law at UHasselt, told VRT NWS. “It’s about safeguarding the separation of powers.” He noted that parliament generally lifts immunity fairly readily when it judges the judiciary must be able to do its work, and does not expect rapid reform given that any change would require a constitutional revision.

The anomaly here, experts suggest, stemmed less from the immunity rule itself than from a procedural lapse by the prosecutor’s office, which never requested the waiver before proceeding.

What’s Next

The Parket has not ruled out re-summoning Yzermans once immunity is properly lifted, though his lawyer argues the facts are now time-barred. Beyond the individual case, the episode has revived debate in the Chamber of Representatives over whether an 1831-era protection still fits a system in which routine traffic offenses are handled administratively — and over how a sitting lawmaker and mayor could accumulate more than a hundred tickets before any of them reached a courtroom. Whether that debate produces more than rhetoric remains to be seen.