ABSTRACT
The discovery in August 1996 of inhuman and cruel treatment of children and even child murders revealed serious deficiencies in the Belgian police and judicial system and provoked a series of unusual mass demonstrations. Is this a real ‘disaster’ or ‘fiasco’? How can the dysfunction of the Belgian justice system and its political context be explained? Was this an ‘evolving’ fiasco which can be explained by going back in time and by a process of ‘backward mapping’? Why is Belgian democracy in crisis?
