Legal Aid in Belgium and The Netherlands : Convergences and Differences between Two Institutional Systems

Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century in Belgium, there has frequently been fierce debate between the world of the politician and that of the lawyer. These debates focus on the secondary legal aid offered citizens in the low income bracket or in a specific social category. On the one hand, lawyers criticise the low rates they can charge when representing their legal aid clients. According to the members of the bar, the system of remuneration is unfavourable since the lawyers believe that the amounts they receive per hour of work provided fall well below the break-even point. On the other hand, the world of politics has noticed an increase in the volume of litigation which results in increases in budget which in turn becomes uncontrollable. All in all, this raises the question of financing secondary legal aid, which in many continental European countries is considered a citizen’s acquired right (Cappeletti and Garth, 1978, Cappeletti, 1972), or has even been recognised by constitutions since it is one of the fundamental pillars of the guarantee to (relatively) equal access to justice (Parker, 1999). Drawing on this observation of lack of budgetary control in Belgium, we ask the question of whether other institutional contexts perform better (Regan 1999; Driesen et al., 2006).