“Armed administration”: the need for a decent juridical framework
The waiting game seems to be over concerning the administrative approach of (organized) crime. The
media has been reporting once about “the administrative approach”, then about “the armed administration”.
This contribution discusses the terminological distinction between both concepts. It can be
stated that “armed administration” has to be considered as a part of “the administrative approach”;
enabling administrative authorities to take action – on the basis of judicial information where they
generally don’t have access to – to avoid that a criminal entity would misuse legal instruments. The
information flow between judicial and administrative authorities plays a key role, but an analysis of
the current legislation underlines the rather inadequate juridical framework of this. Zooming in on the
Dutch system highlights the shortcomings in the Belgian legislation, but constitutes at the same time
a source of inspiration. The question is whether or not the draft law “local administrative approach” –
adopted on the 22nd of June 2018 – can provide the solution.