The institution judged, Tuesday, the disproportionate measure and carrying “the freedom of artistic expression”. She led the government to give up on Wednesday to her project intended to limit the circulation of the Omicron variant.
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The Belgian government has revised its copy. A few days after ordering the closure of theaters and show to contain the emergence of the Omicron Variant, the Executive renounced, Wednesday, December 29, to this decision, after having seen it suspended, Tuesday, in the extreme urgency, by a judgment of the Council of State. “The culture is finally part of the political debate after eighteen months of crisis during which it was violated,” enthuses Pierre Thys, director of the National Theater, and one of the Words of the Standing For Culture Movement. Theaters can reopen, as announced on Tuesday evening the authorities.
The closure of cultural places, decided on Wednesday, December 22 by the Government of Alexander de Croo, had upset the sector. It had mobilized in number, in the streets of Brussels on Sunday to denounce this “humiliation”. Theaters and cinemas had decided to remain open despite everything, with the posted support of elected representatives of the opposition and even of the majority, whose parties had participated in the consultation committee resulting in the confinement of the cultural sector. Paul Magnette, President of the Socialist Party, a member of the coalition, had admitted, in the newspaper L’Echo: “Collectively, we placed itself.” Scientists of the crisis strategy expert group had regretted publicly. lack of logic of such a decision that did not rely on their recommendations.
It is in this tense context that the judgment made by the Council of State. “The political and scientific consensus had broken, there was a crack in which to rug”, “said Nelson Briou, one of the lawyers charged with the introduction of the appeal on behalf of the producer of a play. had to be played in Brussels at the end of the year.
Fundamental right
Access to culture is a fundamental right inscribed in the Belgian Constitution. “And this judgment recalls that it is necessary to demonstrate that there are no less living measures for fundamental rights”, insists Pierre-Arnaud Perrouty, Director of the League of Human Rights. For the Council of State, the administrative act ordering the closure of the cultural sector was not “objectively and reasonably justified”. The judgment points the disproportionate character of a measure that “affects freedom of artistic expression”.
For Philippe Degeneffe, President of the Federation of the Employers of the Performing Arts, “This is an important symbolic victory for the cultural sector, but that you have to qualify”. Indeed, the return to the previous situation means that it is again the maximum gauge of 200 people in the theaters, regardless of their size, which will be applied; to the chagrin of the sectors concerned. “It’s a disaster for large halls,” says Pierre Thys. The Alexander government of Croo is now working on gauges proportional to the size of the rooms. A decision on this should be made next week. But everything will depend on the virulence of the Omicron variant.