Iap P6/01 Just-His.Be “Justice and Society”
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IAP P6/01 JUST-HIS.BE “JUSTICE AND SOCIETY” ANNUAL REPORT 2007 - SCIENTIFIC REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS I - Description of the state of the research conducted within each WP 3 Thematic Work Package 1: (re)Sources for Justice: Institutions, Competences, Organisation 3 (P4: State Archives) Towards an Institutional Research Guide: the penitentiary archives and the archives of the judicial police 4 WP 1a The penitentiary archives 4 WP 1b The archives of the judicial police 6 PhD research on the history of the prisons and the history of the judicial police in Belgium 9 The history of the central prisons in Belgium, 1770-1870 9 The Judicial Police of the Public Prosecutor's Offices (1919-1952): The difficult choice between efficient 10 criminal investigation and ideological convictions Research collaborations and general contributions to the project 11 Thematic Work Package 2: Civil Justice: Ministries of Justice and Barristers 13 (P2: Ghent University) WP2a The Belgian Ministers of Justice and their civil policies : A prosopographical and quantitative 14 analysis WP2b History of the Belgian bar from the French Revolution to the present 16 Research collaborations and general contributions to the project 18 Thematic Work Package 3: Criminal Justice: Criminal Policies and Penal Practices 19 (P1: Catholic University of Louvain) WP 3a Cellular Regime and 'défense sociale': the penitentiary question in Belgium between 1870 and 1920 20 WP3b To observe, care, and discipline. Public penal institutions for young female delinquents in Belgium 22 (Bruges, Saint-Servais, 1912-1965) Research collaborations and general contributions to the project 24 Thematic Work Package 4: Prosopography of judicial personnel 26 (P3: Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis) WP4a Magistrates' Inaugural Addresses for the Start of the New Judiciary Year in Belgian High Courts 27 (1832-1914) WP4b Belgian Magistrates during the Occupation of the Second World War 28 Research collaborations and general contributions to the project 30 Chronological Work Package 5 : Justice in Wartimes 1914-1950 (P5: Centre for Historical Research and Documentation: War and Contemporary Society: SOMA/CEGES) 31 WP 5 The Attitude of Belgian Magistrates during the First World War 31 WP 5b The Repression of Collaboration after the Second world War as a Policy Problem for the Judicial 33 System Research collaborations and general contributions to the project 36 1 Chronological Workpackage 6 : Justice in Revolution(s): The French experience (1795-1814) and the 37 Dutch experience (1815-1830) (EU1: University of Lille-3 & EU2: Free University of Amsterdam) Transversal WP 7: Towards an integrated instrument for historical social science research: JUST-HIS 39 II - Organisation and functioning of the network 42 1. Network coordination, project management and internal communication 42 2. Functioning of the network: doctoral school and supervision of PhD theses 43 3. Functioning of the network: scientific activities and dissemination of results 44 3.1. Conferences and seminars organised by the network 44 3.2. Specific collective IAP publications 45 3.3. Further dissemination of information on the IAP project and research results 46 III - Publications (published in 2007 and forthcoming) 48 Introductory remark by the IAP promoters 48 1. List of publications of the IAP teams 49 2. Co-publications 58 2 I - Description of the state of the research conducted within each WP Thematic Work Package 1: (re)Sources for Justice: Institutions, Competences, Organisation (P4: State Archives) Since access to, and knowledge about the production of historical sources invariably and fundamentally determines the quality of scientific research on the past and its relations to the present, WP1 constitutes a cornerstone of this IAP research programme on the History of Justice Administration in Belgium. Whereas other research WP’s making up the programme (WP 2-5) have been structured around key areas requiring targeted in-depth research efforts to increase and sophisticate existing knowledge, WP1 provides both the necessary foundations and collective tools for carrying out these different projects and develop the programme at large: information about and access to the archival sources for the history of Belgian justice, and research instruments to correctly exploit and analyse (interpret and contextualise) them. First and foremost, archival support for the whole IAP network is being provided within the scope of WP1, by the responsible partner, the State Archives. This includes initiatives facilitating the research activities of the other IAP members, such as the provision of access for the researchers to judicial/penal archives kept in the different depositories of the State Archives throughout the country, and the provision of information, support and coordination for the localisation and preservation of previously unknown, inaccessible or not yet inventoried archival funds produced by different segments of the Belgian justice administration. The initiatives undertaken during the year 2007 are discussed more in detail under the heading “Research collaborations and general contributions”, together with other collaborations between WP1 and other IAP researchers that have emerged in this first year. Next to these support activities, WP1 includes the development of a research instrument, an “institutional research guide”, offering an exhaustive overview of available sources for the history of Belgian justice. The realisation of this huge undertaking is not only based on the mobilization of existing expertise of the State Archives, it also implies setting up and carrying out a new large-scale preservation, inventorying and research programme. The development of the research instrument involves the elaboration of an archives inventory and an institutional guide, that will directly benefit the larger IAP research during this and future phases. The former will be crucial for opening up new possibilities and venues for research, while at the same time, the latter will provide better insights into the competencies, organisation and general activity of the different institutions making up Belgian justice during the 19th-20th c. The elaboration process of this research instrument will thus, gradually, enhance the existing knowledge about the institutional structure and development of the judicial system at large, and build up a more detailed framework for the analysis of general governmental policy in justice matters (WP2), criminal policy and penal administration (WP3), biographies of acting magistrates and barristers (WP4, WP3) and specificity of war and post-war justice administration (WP 5) in particular. As starting points and prioritized work areas the IAP network has selected, as has been outlined in the project proposal, two documentary sectors that manifest an urgent need for archival preservation on the one hand, and are the most indispensable for enabling research carried out within other WP’s on the other: the penitentiary archives and the archives of the judicial police. The progress achieved in both work areas during 2007 will be discussed in the next section under the heading “Research guide”. On top of its collective contributions with respect to judicial sources, and drawing on the work done in the two documentary sectors mentioned above, WP1 also includes two targeted research projects adding crucial pieces to the puzzle of the history of justice administration in Belgium. These projects, which will ultimately result in two PhD theses, involve in-depth scientific research on the history of the Belgian prisons between 1770 and 1830 on the one hand, and on the history of the judicial police between 1919 and 1952 on the other. The state of this research at the end of this first IAP year will be discussed below under the heading “PhD research”. In order to carry out the large and diverse package of work planned under WP1, the team of the responsible partner, the State Archives, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Karel Velle, has been enlarged 3 with two archivists-researchers, L. Nguyen and F. Welter, from July 2007 onwards. They work on a full-time basis (as PhD-bursaries) on the IAP project. Towards an Institutional Research Guide: the penitentiary archives and the archives of the judicial police As has been noted earlier, the elaboration of an institutional research guide on the sources for the history of Belgian justice is a huge undertaking. In 2007, the first phase of this work process was launched for two prioritized documentary sectors: the penitentiary archives and the archives of the judicial police. The state of conservation of both types of archival sources is quite deplorable and characterised by enormous disparities between the Flanders and the Brussels and Walloon regions. It has to be stressed that these disparities make their preservation and their accessibility for university researchers particularly urgent. Furthermore, this is of fundamental interest for the larger society: a construction of history and memory that is potentially of great value is at this moment at risk because of the problematic state of conservation. A difference of scale between the state of conservation of different collections can lead to non-scientific views of the past. Further, recent debates launched by historians and archivists about the role of the State in history and memory have stressed the need for citizens’ access to the memory of the State. As a consequence, the federal and scientific institution of the State Archives, who has