Constitution of Belgium - Constitutional Amendments

Constitutional Amendments

The Belgian Constitution can be amended by the federal legislative power, which consists of the King (in practice, the Federal Government) and the Federal Parliament. The amendment process is governed by the provisions of Title VIII of the Constitution, which is titled The revision of the Constitution. In order to amend the Constitution, the federal legislative power must declare that there are reasons to revise the Constitution, in accordance with Article 195 of the Constitution. This is done by means of two so-called Declarations of Revision of the Constitution, one adopted by the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate, and one signed by the King and the Federal Government.

Following this declaration, the Federal Parliament is automatically dissolved and a new federal election must take place. This makes it impossible to amend the Constitution unless an election has intervened. Following the election, the new Federal Parliament can amend those articles that have been declared revisable. Neither Chamber can consider amendments to the Constitution unless at least two thirds of its members are present and the Constitution can only be amended if at least two thirds of the votes cast are in favour of the amendment.

There are further restrictions on the power of the Federal Parliament to amend the Constitution. Article 196 of the Constitution provides that the process to amend the Constitution cannot be initiated or continued in times of war or when the Federal Parliament is unable to freely meet in Belgium. Article 197 also provides that the provisions relating to the King's constitutional powers cannot be amended during a regency.

The federal legislative power also has the power to modify the numbers and the subdivisions of the articles of the Constitution, the subdivision of the Constitution into titles, chapters and sections, and the terminology of articles that haven't been declared revisable, in order to bring it in agreement with the terminology used in new provisions and to harmonise the Dutch, French and German texts of the Constitution, in accordance with Article 198. Neither Chamber can debate on such modifications unless at least two thirds of its members are present and the Constitution can only be modified in this manner if at least two thirds of the votes cast are in the affirmative.

The procedure to change and consolidate the structure of the Belgian Constitution and its subdivisions and articles is called coordination. It has only been used once in Belgian history, in 1993, when it was decided to publish a consolidated version of the entire Constitution in the Belgian Official Journal. A coordinated version was proposed to the Federal Parliament by the Federal Government on 25 June 1993, it was adopted by the Chamber of Representatives on 20 January 1994, and by the Senate on 3 February 1994. This coordinated text of the Belgian Constitution was published in the Belgian Official Journal on 17 February 1994.

The Belgian Constitution has been amended 23 times since the coordinated text of 17 February 1994 was published in the Belgian Official Journal: once in 1996, three times in 1997, four times in 1998, twice in 1999 and in 2000, once in 2001, twice in 2002 and in 2004, and three times in 2005 and in 2007. The most recent change to the Constitution took place on 7 May 2007, when the Court of Arbitration was formally renamed Constitutional Court, in order to better reflect the jurisdiction of the court.