Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch

Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch (born May 18, 1900 in Bruges , West Flanders Province ; † September 12, 1993 in Tintange , Luxembourg Province ) was a Belgian bobsledder and lawyer who had participated in the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz and between 1973 and 1986 judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg .

Life

Family, studies and lawyer

Ganshof was the son of Arthur Ganshof, a lawyer from Bruges, and Louise van der Mersch, who gathered numerous Flemish and Walloon-speaking writers in literary circles in her house. His brother was the historian François Louis Ganshof . He completed his school education at the Royal Atheneum in Bruges, before continuing his education in England and later in France after the outbreak of World War I. In August 1918 he volunteered for military service in the army and after the end of the war began studying law at the University of Brussels , after the family had settled in Brussels and his father worked there as a lawyer. After he had completed his studies in 1921, he also took up a position as a lawyer in Brussels in the law firm of the later multiple Justice Minister and Prime Minister Paul-Émile Janson .

In 1923 he married Elisabeth Orts, the daughter of the diplomat and professor at the University of Brussels Pierre Orts and great-granddaughter of the President of the Chamber of Deputies and Minister of State Auguste Orts . Shortly afterwards, he left the Janson office and became the representative of the Brussels Public Prosecutor Léon Cornil. During this time he also met Attorney General Jean Servais.

Olympic participant in 1928

At the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Ganshof was a member of the Belgian Olympic team and, together with Ernest Lambert , Marcel Sedille-Courbon , Léon Tom and Max Houben, was part of the five-man bobsleigh in Belgium I. At the bobsleigh competitions in Olympia Bobrun St. Moritz –Celerina finished sixth with this bob with a time of 3: 24.5 minutes.

His older brother Georges Ganshof van der Meersch was also an Olympic participant at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin , where he competed in show jumping and finished fourth in the individual competition.

Prosecutor and World War II

In 1929 Ganshof was also deputy public prosecutor at the Brussels military court, before he succeeded Cornil as royal prosecutor of Brussels in 1933 through the support of Paul-Émile Jansons, while Cornil in turn succeeded Servais as attorney general at the court of appeal. The politically supported appointment of the 33-year-old, however, met with criticism, for example in the satirical magazine L'Appréciation , because Raoul Hayoit de Termicourt was planned as Cornil's successor.

In 1936 he also became a lecturer in criminal law in the French-speaking department of the University of Brussels and later also in the Dutch-language department, and in 1938 also a lecturer in public law.

A few months after the start of the Second World War , Ganshof became Attorney General at the Military Court of Belgium in April 1940, again with the support of Paul-Émile Janson and Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot . Lucien van Beirs succeeded him as prosecutor of Brussels. After the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht , he and the then head of the State Security Agency, Robert de Foy, were commissioned to conduct investigative proceedings against a few hundred Belgians and foreigners who were suspected of collaborating with Germany. Those arrested on May 10, 1940 included Flemish nationalists Auguste Borms and Joris van Severen .

Two months later, he and de Foy were arrested by the German occupation forces themselves, but released again in December 1940. However, in 1941 the German military administration in Belgium issued a professional ban on Ganshof and other leading lawyers such as Léon Cornil. On December 12, 1942, he and other lawyers such as the Brussels public prosecutor Lucien van Beirs, the prosecutor general at the court of appeal Lucien Pholien, brother of the politician Joseph Pholien , and his deputy Adrien van den Branden de Reeth were arrested again and until February 1943 in the citadel of Huy imprisoned.

After he was arrested again from March 22 to 23, 1943, he went into hiding before he fled to London in mid-June 1943 . There he was appointed by the government in exile under Prime Minister Pierlot as High Commissioner for Reich Security and, as such, was responsible for coordinating the resistance and managing the state security order after the liberation from German occupation. He was also responsible for drawing up a list of people who would be arrested for collaboration after the liberation.

Post-war period, Advocate General at the Court of Cassation and Minister for African Affairs

After the end of the war, Ganshof was again attorney general at the Military Court in 1945, dealing with war crimes trials such as the one against Edmond van Dieren .

When there was a government crisis in mid-1945, he was led by King Leopold III. Briefly asked to form a government without a parliamentary majority, which he refused, so that Achille Van Acker remained Prime Minister.

The appointment of Ganshof as the first chairman of the newly founded Council of State , the advisory and judicial body within the executive power , intended by Interior Minister Piet Vermeylen for 1947 , failed due to the veto of Prime Minister van Ackeren, while both Vermeylen and the two politicians of the Belgian Socialist Party , Paul -Henri Spaak and Henri Rolin , who supported the calling.

In February 1947 he was appointed Advocate General at the Court of Cassation , the highest ordinary court in Belgium, whereby he again succeeded Léon Cornil. In addition, he was involved in 1959 as vice-chairman of the Institute for Comparative Law.

On 16 May 1960 it appointed Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens for minister without portfolio with special jurisdiction for general affairs of Africa . As such, he was responsible for the independence of the Belgian colonies . He held the office for almost two months until July 20, 1960 and was replaced on July 23, 1960 by August De Schryver , who had been Minister for the Belgian Congo and Rwanda-Urundi until then . In 1961 he was Professor of International Comparative Law at the University of Strasbourg .

University professor and promotion to attorney general at the court of cassation

In addition, Ganshof accepted a professorship for public law at the University of Brussels and founded the Institute for European Studies (Institut d'Études Européennes) in 1963 at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), which emerged from this in 1969, and he was president from 1963 to 1970 was. Among his assistants at the chair of public law was François Perin , later co-founder of the Mouvement populaire wallon (MPW) and between 1974 and 1976 Minister for Institutional Reform in the government of Prime Minister Leo Tindemans .

In 1965, he succeeded Roger Janssens de Bisthoven as First Advocate General at the Court of Cassation before he finally became Attorney General at the Court of Cassation in July 1968. He thus succeeded Raoul Hayoit de Termicourt, who had succeeded Léon Cornil in this office since 1954. He held this office for six years until May 1974. At the same time he became vice-chairman of the International Institute for Human Rights in 1968, of which he was chairman some time later.

Judge at the European Court of Human Rights

In 1973 Ganshof, who was raised to hereditary nobility in November 1974 as a burgrave , was judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg and held this position until 1986. He was Henri Rolin's successor and the second Belgian in such a position Judicial office. After his departure in 1986, he was replaced by Jan De Meyer . Most recently he was Vice-President of the ECHR from 1985 to 1986. He also served as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice on two cases .

In 1978 he became a member of the Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique , of which he was a corresponding member since 1972. In 1985 he was chairman of the academy and in 1993 received an honorary doctorate from the University of Strasbourg.

After his death in 1995 the Ganshof van der Meersch chair at the Institute for European Studies of the Université libre de Bruxelles was founded in his honor. The chair focuses on economic, historical, political and legal aspects of European integration as well as public law. The chair for 2014 was made by John Loughlin , professor at the University of Cambridge and director of the Von Hügel Institute there.

Publications

• Une mission scientifique belge dans le massif du Ruwenzori: à la conquête des régions inaccessibles' de l'Afrique , 1933
• Des rapport entre le chef de l'État et le gouvernement en droit constitutionnel belge , 1950
• Défense nationale et souveraineté , 1950
• La constitution belge et l'évolution de l'ordre juridique international: rapport soumis à la XIIme journée interuniversitaire d'études juridiques , 1952
• ouvoir de fait et règle de droit dans le fonctionnement des institutions politiques , 1957
• Le droit électoral au Congo belge , co-author François Perin , 1958
• The problem of the Security of the state and liberty , 1958
• Introduction au droit constitutionnel comparé , 1959
• Congo, Mei-June 1960: verslag van de minister burden met de algemene zaken in Afrika , 1960
• Structures: conseils, Haute Autorité, commissions , 1960
• Justice et droit international pénal , 1961
• Organizations Européennes: Les Institutions , Brussels 1963
• Fin de la souveraineté belge au Congo: documents et réflexions , 1963
• La primauté de l'exécutif: rapport général au VIIe Congrès international de droit comparé , 1966
• Réflexions sur le droit international et la révision de la Constitution , 1968
• Droit des Communautés Européennes , Brussels 1969
• De Belgische rechter tegenover het internationaalrecht en het gemeenschapsrecht , 1969
• Les novelles: droit des Communautés européennes , 1969
• Le régime juridique des titres de sociétés en Europe et aux États-Unis , 1970
• La preuve en matière d'impôts directes: essai , 1970
• Miscellanea WJ Ganshof van der Meersch: study ab discipulis amicisque in honorem agregii professoris edita; Mélanges publiés sous l'égide et avec l'appui du Center interuniversitaire de droit public et de l'Universite libre de Bruxelles , 1972
• Beschouwingen over de herziening van de Grondwet , 1972
• Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Leo Cornil: apercus de l'histoire de l'Universite de Bruxelles sous l'occupation ennemie, 1940-1944 , 1972
• Les recours des individus devant les instances nationales en cas de violation du droit européen: communautés européennes et Convention européenne des droits de l'homme , 1978
• L'Ordre juridique des communautés européennes et le droit international , 1978
• Rapports belges au XI: Congrès de l'Académie internationale de droit comparé, Caracas, 29 août-5 September 1982 , 1982
• Les relations exterieures des Etats à système constitutionnel régional ou fédéral , co-author R. Ergec, 1986

Web links

• Eva Schandevyl: Walter Ganshof van der Meersch, een topmagistraat in zijn professionele en maatschappelijke context. Een kijk op het Belgische just in de twintigste eeuw
• Bibliography ( Google Books )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walter Jean Ganshof van der Meersch (sports-reference.com)
2. ↑ Georges Ganshof van der Meersch (sports-reference.com)
3. ↑ JUDGES OF THE COURT SINCE 1959 ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Belgian proceedings and judges at the ECHR ( Memento of the original of July 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (human-rights-convention.org) 
5. ↑ Ganshof van der Meersch 2014 Chair's inaugural lecture - "European federalism in times of crisis", John Loughlin (University of Cambridge) (Homepage of the Université libre de Bruxelles)
6. ^ Wolfgang Bongen: Barriers to freedom of movement for reasons of public order and security in the law of the European Economic Community , p. 160, ISBN 3-42843-375-0 , 1975