The reform of the disciplinary procedure for the judicial system: a step towards a fully-fledged integrity policy?
Integrity policy must be composed by stimulating and control instruments. We consider the disciplinary procedure as a control instrument of integrity policy. Recently, as part of a fundamental reform of the Belgian judicial system, the disciplinary procedure has been revised. The new disciplinary system will come into force ultimately the 1st of September 2014. We have taken this moment of fundamental change of the disciplinary procedure to detect the weaknesses of the current system and the potential of the new disciplinary procedure to meet the criticisms. We interviewed 12 people working in the judicial environment with a specific expertise in disciplinary sanctions. The main question of this research was to what extent we can consider this reform as a step towards a fully-fledged integrity policy.