BELGIUM: Migration expert CSO excluded from parliamentary hearing
On 18 June, a majority of Belgian MPs voted to exclude a leading migrants rights organisation from parliamentary committee hearings. The Coordination et Initiatives pour Réfugiés et Étrangers (CIRÉ) is an umbrella organisation of 32 CSOs working on migration and migrants’ rights, with a 70-year history.
The hearing, from which the CSO was excluded, concerned the debate on the proposed legislation on home visits, permitting authorities to enter private homes to arrest people with precarious residence status. CIRÉ was named specifically as being excluded from hearings devoted to this bill. The law proposal has faced legal scrutiny from multiple Belgian institutions, including the Council of State and the Federal Migration Centre (Myria), which have expressed serious fundamental rights concerns about the bill’s provisions.
CIRÉ produced an awareness-raising video in November 2025 depicting a family breakfast interrupted by a forced police raid, claiming that it illustrates what the bill could lead to if passed. The video was interpreted as disinformation by parliamentarians of the majority, and the decision to exclude the CSO from the parliamentary hearing cites this video. The CIRÉ emphasises that the video illustrated legitimate concerns about ambiguous provisions in the proposed home visit legislation. According to CIRÉ, the proposed bill does not clearly define persons who could be targeted, opening doors to arbitrary and disproportionate application.
The decision marks the first time that the government has used a vote to dictate which organisations could be heard by the parliamentary committee. The exclusion of the CSO creates an alarming precedent that could normalise excluding critical voices from legislative debates, particularly on politically sensitive topics, such as migration. Additionally, it raises concerns about freedom of expression, as civil society’s materials intended to illustrate potential legal consequences become grounds for being excluded from consultation processes and open democratic debate. The CIRÉ announced it will continue working on critical oversight of the bill regardless.