Belgium
1. Legal Gazette
1.1. Overview
Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt
Belgian State Gazette
Published by:
Bestuur van het Belgisch Staatsblad/Direction du Moniteur belge
(Directorate of the Belgian State Gazette)
Antwerpsesteenweg / Chaussée d’Anvers 53 — 1000 Brussel/Bruxelles/Brussels
Belgium
Tel. +32 25522211 (1freephone number within Belgium: 080098809)
Fax +32 25110184
E-mail: info.staatsblad@just.fgov.be / info.moniteur@just.fgov.be
Website: https://justitie.belgium.be/nl/belgisch_staatsblad
Website: https://justice.belgium.be/fr/moniteur_belge
| Official journal / legal gazette |
The Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge contains parts with legislation as well as parts with legal notices and other official texts; see point 1.2 for
details. |
| First edition |
16 June 1831
|
| First online edition |
1 June 1997 |
| Paper edition |
Belgisch Staatsblad/ Moniteur belge
An official paper edition is no longer distributed; four paper copies are archived (see point 1.2 for details).
Price
Paper copies are produced on demand only:
EUR 1.63/10 p., thereafter EUR 0.54/5 p. |
| Online edition |
http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/welcome.pl
Available texts
ASCII and PDF from 1997 (scanning of older copies is in progress)
Access and price
Free distribution to the public is carried out exclusively online (see point 1.2 for details).
Legally binding (PDF version) |
| CD/DVD edition |
No CD/DVD edition |
1.2. Details on the legal gazette in general
| Content |
The Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge is divided into four parts:
- Part I: laws, decrees, ordinances and regulations (pertaining to laws on federal and non-federal levels), some court decisions
- Part II: other acts such as royal and ministerial decrees on all levels (federal and non-federal)
- Part III: official/legal notices
- Part IV: other legal information and communications
|
| Linguistic versions |
In Belgium, the legal basis for publishing legislation is defined in various legal provisions, given that the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt publishes for several institutions. The most important are the Belgian Constitution, the Act of 31 May 1961 on the use of languages in legislation and the procedure of publication, the special law of 8 August 1980 on the reform of the Belgian institutions and Articles 472 to 478 of the Programming Act of 24 December 2002, amended by Articles 4 to 8 of the Act of 20 July 2005 and articles 117 and 118 of the Act of 5 May 2019. The latter lays down the current publication and distribution procedures (limited number of paper copies and distribution via the Internet). |
| Legal basis |
Public distribution has been carried out exclusively online since 1 January 2003. Only four official paper copies of each gazette are produced (for the Ministry of Justice, the Belgisch Staatsblad/ Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt, the National Library and, the National Archive). Nevertheless, the competent authority considers that these four paper copies are the legally binding version. Other paper copies are produced on demand (see point 1.1 for price details). Further to a decision of the now Constitutional Court (Grondwettelijk Hof/Cour constitutionnelle), a free-of-charge helpdesk for facilitating access to the online edition was created on 1 August 2005. Since 15 October 2005 almost every courthouse has had to make paper summaries of the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge available to the public. |
| Financing |
State budget |
| Other gazettes |
Separate legal publications exist for provinces and other levels. For example, the provinces publish their regulations and ordinances in an official publication called Bestuursmemoriaal/Mémorial administratif. Despite the country’s federal structure, all legislation, federal and regional, is published at the centralised level of the Belgisch Staatsblad/ Moniteur belge. |
1.3. Details on the online edition
http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/welcome.pl
See also point 1.1
| Functionalities |
Download |
| Format description |
|
| Authenticity |
The authenticity of the online edition is based on the image format (see point 1.4 for details). |
| Archiving |
There are no legal provisions for archiving electronic editions of legislation/electronic texts in general. Paper copies are kept in different places for archiving, accessibility and continuity of the principle of publication. The publishing organisation is responsible for archiving. |
1.4. Details on the publishing institution
Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt
(Belgian State Gazette)
For contact details, please refer to point 1.1
| Form and nature |
Part of the Ministry of Justice (official name: Federal Public Service — Justice) |
|
| Basic tasks |
- Pre-press: yes
- Printing: yes
- Dissemination/distribution: yes
- Legal gazette online: yes
- Legislation database: yes
- Consolidation: yes
|
| Other services offered |
- Reading room
- Document information service
- Helpdesk
- Visitor reception
|
|
1.5. Drafting and publishing procedures
Text processing
systems |
Drafting and adopting legislation is the responsibility of the various parliaments and governments. Some of them use template-based software; others work with standard office packages. For this reason, there is no unique system for primary and secondary legislation. |
| Workflow |
- There is no single integrated electronic workflow system for drafting,adopting and publishing legislation. The publishing body receives information in several text and image formats. Part of the information is delivered on paper.
- The publishing organisation converts these formats into Xyvision layout files and exports them as PostScript and HTML files. The PostScript files are then converted into PDF files for online publishing.
- The HTML files are used in the underlying ‘full-text search’ database.
|
| Publishing |
- The department introducing the publication request (administrations, parliaments, etc.) checks the final proofs before publication. In the case of extreme urgency and for texts of minor importance, proofreading is carried out by the publishing organisation.
- The individual texts are grouped in a publication prepared one day in advance. It is possible for several editions to be published on the same day. In urgent cases, publication can take place within two hours of reception of the text by the publishing organisation, depending on the volume and complexity of the text.
- The paper edition is derived from the electronic PDF edition, which ensures that both editions correspond exactly.
- After publication, some text files are recovered to be used in the ‘consolidated legislation’ database of the Ministry of Justice (see point 2).
|
2. Collections of consolidated legislation
See full details >>
Belgische wetgeving — Législation belge
(Belgian legislation)
(database of the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt, details see point 3.2)
Body carrying out
consolidation |
Ministry of Justice — Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt — Service Justel |
| Content |
All legislative acts that have been published since June 1994 in the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge.
All legislative acts that were published before June 1994 in the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge, except tax and administrative law.
|
Status of the
consolidated texts |
Consolidation is for information purposes only. |
3. Legislative portals and online databases
3.1. Official portals
Kruispuntbank van de wetgeving — Banque carrefour de la législation
(Crossroads bank for legislation)
http://www.belgielex.be / http://www.belgiquelex.be / http://www.belgienlex.be
(http://belgiumlex.be)
Organisation
responsible |
The portal is the result of a cooperation agreement between several federal, community and regional institutions. Participating institutions include, for example, the Council of State, parliaments and ministries of the respective language communities (Dutch, French and German).
|
| Content |
Launched on 8 March 2005, the portal gives access to Belgian legislation on a federal and non-federal level, as well as to preparatory parliamentary proceedings and case law.
The portal gives, inter alia, access to the following systems: the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge (see point 1.3 for details);
- database containing consolidated legislation provided by several institutions;
- the database containing the legislative index provided by several institutions.
During the initial stage, the databanks of the participating institutions may be accessed via the Crossroads portals. The second phase will involve linking the various databanks with one another so as to create a fully fledged network while developing a specific application to allow all the databanks to be consulted in a single search operation.
|
3.2. Official databases
For the Belgisch Staatsblad — Moniteur belge online, see point 1.3
Belgische wetgeving/Législation belge
(Belgian legislation)
Address: use the portal addresses mentioned in point 3.1
Organisation
responsible |
Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge/Belgisches Staatsblatt |
| Content |
The system is a search interface combining access to two databases:
- the Justel database of consolidated law, all legislative acts in consolidated version that have been published since June 1994 in the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge and legislation even before 1994 except tax and administrative law;
- the legislative index containing only metadata.
|
| Access |
Free of charge |
| Access via N-Lex (see Annex 2) |
Yes, access to the consolidated version and to the index |
3.3. Additional information: other commonly used legal databases
