Case over missing Saudi activist falters in EU court

(CN) — A bid to bring Saudi officials before a Belgian court over a missing women’s rights activist ran into a hard stop Thursday, as Europe’s top court said EU victim rules cannot be used to open the door to cases that fall outside national jurisdiction.

Two siblings, identified as FP and LD, turned to Belgian courts hoping to take senior Saudi officials to trial over suspected crimes against humanity committed against their sister, a Saudi women’s rights activist.

Their argument was simple but strategic: If they themselves could be recognized as victims under EU law, that could help ground the case in Belgium. That dispute reached a Brussels appeals court, which asked whether the EU’s victims’ rights directive could broaden who counts as a victim and, in doing so, potentially expand jurisdiction.

That argument didn’t get far.

The Court of Justice of the European Union sidestepped the victim question and focused on something more fundamental: Courts need jurisdiction first, and EU victim rules cannot be used to create it. In short, those rules govern how people are treated once a case exists, not whether a national court can hear it in the first place.

Back in December 2021, FP and LD filed a criminal complaint in Belgium accusing senior Saudi officials of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearance tied to what they described as a broader crackdown that swept up their sister.

Human rights groups have reported similar patterns in recent years, with Saudi authorities detaining several prominent women’s rights activists, including campaigners who pushed for lifting the driving ban. Reports have pointed to prolonged detention, restricted access to lawyers and brutal interrogations, even as the government has introduced some reforms easing restrictions on women’s mobility.

FP and LD argued that the harm extended to them as well, pointing to psychological trauma and financial loss, and said that made them victims in their own right under EU law, adding they had registered as residents in Belgium and met the conditions to bring the case there.

Belgium’s federal prosecutor pushed back, arguing the courts lacked jurisdiction. The suspected crimes took place abroad, the sister had no legal ties to Belgium and without that connection, the case could not proceed.

The EU judges declined to stretch the directive to fill that gap. They stressed any rights under EU law only come into play once a member state has jurisdiction.

The broader debate, however, remains unresolved outside this case.

Grażyna Baranowska, professor of migration law and human rights at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, said the court could have clarified that families of disappeared persons fall within the EU definition of victims. In her view, international law supports treating them not merely as relatives but as victims in their own right.

That view is echoed in international law. Manfred Nowak, secretary general of the Global Campus of Human Rights and a former U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said international law clearly recognizes close relatives of disappeared persons as victims in their own right. He pointed to the 2006 enforced disappearance convention, which defines victims to include “any individual who has suffered harm as the direct result of an enforced disappearance.”

Drawing on decades of experience, Nowak said families often endure prolonged psychological suffering, living “in a constant stage of uncertainty in between hope and despair,” which justifies treating them as victims with rights to truth and remedies.

He added that this recognition is crucial given the long-term uncertainty surrounding the fate and whereabouts of disappeared persons, and should include concrete forms of redress such as social benefits, compensation, rehabilitation, apologies, proper burial and memorialization.

But the court did not engage with that question in this case, addressing it only briefly and ultimately leaving it unresolved.

Instead, the ruling leaves that debate for another day, as the judges did not need to decide whether the siblings could qualify as victims under EU law. The matter now returns to the Belgian court, which is expected to dismiss it in line with the ruling. The court’s interpretation of EU law is final.

Lawyers for the siblings and Belgium’s federal prosecutor did not respond to requests for comment.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.