INTRODUCTION

Constitutional review of Acts of Parliament in Belgium is assigned to a special Constitutional Court. The reason for the Court's establishment in 1983 lays in the emergence of the Belgian federal state, which implied the coexistence of federal laws and state laws. Originally, the Court was called the Court of Arbitration to emphasize its limited competences; until 1988, its only mandate was to supervise the division of powers between the federation and the federated entities (called regions and communities). Gradually, the Court evolved into a full Constitutional Court. Crucial to this evolution was the 1988 assignment to the Court of the competence to review the compatibility of statutes to the equality and nondiscrimination clause as laid down in the articles 10 and 11 of the Belgian Constitution. The Court accepts that these articles can be combined with rights laid down in constitutional or international provisions and unwritten legal principles, such as the principle of legal certainty. The legislator has confirmed this extensive interpretation of the Court's competences in 2003. Since then, the Court has power to review statutes against the provisions that allocate competences to the federal state, the regions, and the communities; against all articles in title II of the constitution (on fundamental rights, including articles 10 and 11); and against the articles 170, 172, and 191 of the Constitution (rights concerning taxes and equal protection of foreigners on Belgian territory). In 2007, the former Court of Arbitration was renamed the Constitutional Court.