The Belgian Council of State has for the first time ordered the government to relax anti-Covid restrictions, on the occasion of a request for the exercise of worship and the limitation to five participants in religious marriages.
Read also: Covid: are places of worship really places of contamination?
In reaction to a judgment rendered Tuesday evening by the highest administrative court, the Belgian Minister of Justice, responsible for worship, decided on Wednesday December 9 afternoon to raise the authorized number of participants to 15.
"
There could be a maximum of 15 people, with an average person for 10 m2,
" said Edward Landtsheere, spokesman for Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne.
This amounts to extending to religious weddings a limit that was already in effect for funerals, said the spokesperson, speaking of "
a new general rule
" for religious celebrations.
In its judgment, the Council of State criticized the absence of specific exceptions to a rule in force for a month, as part of the second confinement, strictly limiting "
the collective exercise of worship
".
"Moral and family" damage
The court was seized in summary by members of the Orthodox Jewish community of Antwerp (north) worried that this limitation - to five people in the same place of prayer - effectively prohibits a religious wedding scheduled for next Monday with about fifteen expected participants.
The impossibility of holding this marriage entails "
irrevocable moral and family damage
" for the future spouses, stipulated the judgment rendered Tuesday evening, also recalling that the free exercise of worship has been guaranteed by the Belgian Constitution for 190 years.
As of Wednesday morning, Vincent Van Quickenborne promised to "
find a good balance between freedom of religion and public health
".
In the afternoon, it brought together representatives of the six main religions in Belgium (Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant), to whom this relaxation of restrictions was proposed.
The goal, Landtsheere continued, is for a new ministerial decree to be issued on Saturday so that the easing can come into force on Sunday, the deadline set by the Council of State.
The urgent request of the Orthodox Jews came on the eve of the Chanukah holidays (December 10-18).
Belgium, with more than 17,500 deaths recorded over the past nine months, is one of the countries in the world most bereaved by the coronavirus pandemic, reported to its 11.5 million inhabitants.
The kingdom was hit hard by the second wave to the point that the government decreed at the end of October a new partial confinement (schools remaining open) scheduled until at least January.
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