Abstract
Like several other European belligerent countries, Belgium faced significant difficulties in regard to housing during World War One. In particular, the drop in household income caused the multiplication of rent disputes and the polarisation of relations between two classes of citizens with conflicting interests: tenants and landlords. If most countries at war took measures to resolve the crisis—e.g., instituting a moratorium on rents or setting rent price controls—the Belgian case was different and unique in Western Europe because the country was then governed by the German occupier. Likely influenced by lobby groups created within occupied Belgium, the occupier established new authorities—the arbitration tribunals—charged with resolving disputes between landlords and tenants. This essay explores the judicial dimension of the rent issue during World War One. Indeed, beyond its social effect and its impact on judicial organisation, the rent problem questioned the legality of the occupier’s decrees and their applicability by Belgian judges. The debate around the legitimacy of those arbitration tribunals provoked the question of the judges’ patriotism and generated strong internal divisions amongst them.
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Notes
- 1.
Such measure would eventually be taken in the city of Ghent in October 1916, inspired by a Dutch regulation (Winsel 1918, 21). In Berlin, in the early stages of the war, a Mietbeihilfe had been introduced; it was paid directly to landlords to avoid the accumulation of tenants’ debts and to negotiate lower rents (Magri 1997, 378).
- 2.
Municipal decrees could also be the source of the problem: in Charleroi, for instance, the director of a cinema faced great difficulty paying its lease since the city decided to forbid movie performances for the duration of the war; its demand that the rent be suspended was rejected by the tribunal de première instance (Carlier 1915, 30–33).
- 3.
See the evolution curves produced by Van Den Eeckhout and Scholliers (1979).
- 4.
Act prohibiting proceedings against citizens at war. Moniteur belge, 5 August 1914, 5000. A French law of 1870 inspired it.
- 5.
Act on granting of grace periods by the courts. Moniteur Belge, 5 August 1914, 4999.
- 6.
Pasicrisie belge 1915, II, 14–15.
- 7.
Twelve assessors (six landlords, six tenants) were chosen for one year by the president of the tribunal de première instance on a list drawn up by the justices of the peace of the district. They sat in turns. Whether or not they chaired an arbitration tribunal, their jurisdiction in rental cases was increased.
- 8.
Dalloz Périodique (1871, 47–51). In Berlin, ‘the city council had established Mieteinigungsämter, tenant and landlord arbitrators dealing with accommodation rented at no more than 500 marks per year’ (Magri 1997, 378).
- 9.
Several circulars emanating from the German civil administration and addressed to the Brussels public prosecutor regarding the repression of vagrancy show the occupier’s concern about the growing number of vagrants in the capital city. Quite surprisingly, however, the number of vagrants and beggars brought before the police courts drastically dropped during the war years. The difficulties involved in transfering the individuals to specialised detention centres probably offers a partial explanation.
- 10.
Some German tenants who, in August 1914, temporarily fled their homes to escape the anti-German riots (on the riots, see Vrints 2005), received an unfavorable ruling upon their return. See, for instance, the judgement of the Brussels justice of the peace (3rd canton) of 25 November 1914 that did not award a German woman faced with such a situation—her landlord denounced her to the police as a German spy and threw her out of the house—the applicant damages for being deprived of enjoyment of her property (Carlier 1915, 26–30).
- 11.
Bulletin de la Ligue, IV, 15 June 1915.
- 12.
Fédération des ligues de locataires de Belgique, Les loyers et la guerre, 13 février 1918, 14.
- 13.
Le Quotidien was heavily criticised in Brussels circles, notably by the liberals. According to the Brussels mayor, Adolphe Max, it was ‘a German press medium printed in French’ (Gille et al. 1919, 1:47). Yet Boghaert-Vaché was not harassed after the war, his newspaper being intended to answer the economic crisis by gathering job vacancies and applications etc. (Gotovitch 1961, 44).
- 14.
The term “vulture” when referring to landlords was used widely by the French syndicalists and anarchists during the Second Empire; it was popularized by the cartoonist Honoré Daumier, who created the ‘Monsieur Vautour’ character. During the war, in Belgium, some landlords would use it in order to distance themselves from the negative figure. A representative of the union of the Brussels landlords once told a journalist that its aim was not to struggle with the League of the tenants: ‘Conciliation is our main concern, and M. Vulture mustn’t address to us’ (Winsel 1918, 17).
- 15.
Bulletin de la Ligue, II, 30 April 1915.
- 16.
Even today, such model of a ‘mixed’ court appeals to those who would like to bring the justice system closer to the people: ‘the presence within the tribunal of someone able to understand and share citizens’ concerns, interests, even language and culture’ (http://www.tnova.fr/essai/la-justice-un-pouvoir-de-la-d-mocratie).
- 17.
Taking into account the pro-German position of the newspaper at the beginning of the war, this information should be considered with caution.
- 18.
The Brussels bar was accused of defending German clients only with reluctance (Brussels Courthouse, archives of the Court of cassation’s public ministry, 3, II).
- 19.
The Brussels Bar Council reserved a part of its budget to pay the plaintiff’s advocacy work and the eventual legal cost of the process, regardless of the outcome of the judicial proceeding (Brussels Courthouse, archives of the Brussels Bar Council, minutes of meetings).
- 20.
The Ghent Bar president Ligy attended the audience to assist his Brussels colleague (Bulletin de la Ligue des Locataires, n°2, 30 April 1915). Theodor could also rely on the Brussels Conférence du jeune barreau and on several studies to prepare his opinion. The lawyer Charles Resteau, in his pamphlet La Belgique sous la griffe allemande, published in Paris in 1915, devoted one chapter to the decree of 20 November 1914. He would later apply the same reasoning to the arbitration tribunals: the decree’s indispensable necessity not being demonstrated, the courts do not have to apply it.
- 21.
According to the lawyer, the German decree violated two articles of the Belgian Constitution (article 8: ‘No one can be reassigned, against his will, to a court other than that designated by law’ and article 94 prohibiting special courts).
- 22.
The personality of Vice-President Benoidt was so identified with the judgement that the two other judges composing the tribunal—Leclercq and Oliviers—have been forgotten.
- 23.
Belgique judiciaire 1919, 236–245.
- 24.
Belgique judiciaire 1919, 130–138.
- 25.
Auguste Beernaert (Ostende 1829–Lucerne 1912): lawyer, Catholic politician. Former Prime Minister and Minister of State, President of the Parliament. After his Belgian political career, Beernaert turned to international politics. He represented Belgium at the Hague Peace Conference (1899) and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his investment in international law. See Verwaest (2011).
- 26.
‘Comprendrait-on que, d’avance et pour le cas d’une guerre, celui qui sera battu attribue des droits chez lui à son vainqueur et organise le régime de la défaite? Ce pourrait-il être du consentement anticipé et écrit du vaincu que le vainqueur établisse des impôts et des amendes et prenne à son service des fonctionnaires dont le premier devoir est d’être fidèles à leur pays?’ (Verwaest 2011, 25).
- 27.
‘Réunion régionale. Arrondissement de Bruxelles, séance du 21 mars 1915’, in Journal des Juges de Paix 1915, 1–3.
- 28.
On the public prosecutor’s opinion and the decision of the Court, see Belgique judiciaire 1919, 119–130.
- 29.
Pasicrisie belge 1915–1916, I, 375–418.
- 30.
Eugène Hanssens was not only a judicial personality. He represented the Liberal Party through the National Relief and Food Committee, a powerful national charitable organisation in occupied Belgium that was considered to be the effective government of occupied Belgium.
- 31.
In contrast, the Brussels and Liège’s Courts of appeal considered themselves competent to evaluate the German decrees.
- 32.
Les Comités de conciliation et l’œuvre du barreau, Le Bulletin de la Ligue des Locataires, 30 juin 1915: 1.
- 33.
Conférence du jeune barreau 1914–1918, s.l., 1919: 82.
- 34.
Unfortunately, we lack statistical data for the next years.
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Bost, M. (2021). Judges, Lawyers, ‘Vultures’ and ‘Butchers’: Actors and Stakes of the Rental Crisis in Occupied Brussels, 1914–1918. In: Bost, M., Vrints, A. (eds) Doing Justice In Wartime. Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72050-6_2
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