Belgium’s Council of Ministers approved on Friday 18 September an amending Royal Decree that will increase the number of court clerks (greffiers) at the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL) from 14 to 18. According to Asylum and Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt, the staffing level had not changed since 2015 even though the number of judges has almost doubled – from 34 to 62 – in response to rising volumes of visa, residence-permit and asylum appeals. The draft will now be submitted to the Council of State for its opinion before returning to parliament later this autumn. The CALL, created in 2007, is Belgium’s highest administrative court for immigration matters and handles around 10,000 appeals a year. In practice, overstretched clerks have had to rely on junior legal officers and even administrative assistants to transcribe hearings and draft decisions, a workaround that both slows proceedings and raises concerns about procedural rigour. By adding four full-time clerks – two French-speaking, two Dutch-speaking – the ministry aims to cap the workload at four judges per clerk and to professionalise the drafting of written judgments. Processing delays at the CALL have knock-on effects for global mobility. Businesses waiting for work permits, foreign students seeking residence extensions, and transferees contesting negative family-reunification decisions can face months of legal limbo. The legal-services provider Fragomen estimates that each week of delay costs employers an average €1,200 in project postponements and interim travel. Faster issuance of reasoned decisions also shortens the time frame within which the State must comply, meaning quicker clarity for applicants. The move dovetails with a wider digital-justice modernisation agenda that will introduce mandatory electronic filing for immigration appeals in 2027. The additional clerks are expected to receive specialised training in remote-hearing technology and multilingual drafting to support the shift. Stakeholders welcome the measure but note that the Council’s caseload is likely to keep rising as new EU asylum procedures enter into force next year; they urge the government to consider further structural reforms, including a triage system for manifestly well-founded work-authorisation cases. For HR and mobility teams, the immediate takeaway is that appeals lodged from early 2027 could move more quickly, reducing the need for costly interim solutions such as rotational Schengen travel or remote working arrangements. Companies with pending cases are advised to monitor publication of the final decree and to ensure that any supplementary evidence is ready when the expanded clerical staff comes online.
Source: news.belgium.be
