Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde

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Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (Dutch: Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde; French: Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde) is a judicial arrondissement encompassing the bilingual—French and Dutch—Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the administrative arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking area of Halle-Vilvoorde, which in turn coincides with the administrative arrondissement of Halle-Vilvoorde. Halle-Vilvoorde contains several municipalities with language facilities, i.e. municipalities where French-speaking people form a considerable part of the population and therefore have special language rights. The arrondissment is the location of a tribunal of first instance, enterprise tribunal and a labour tribunal.

Prior to the sixth Belgian state reform in 2012, the area also formed the electoral arrondissement of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV), which, as part of the same 2012 reform, was completely split into a Brussels electoral district and, together with the electoral district of Leuven, into the electoral district of the province of Flemish Brabant. All Belgian electoral arrondissements now coincide with the Belgian provinces. Before the splitting, BHV was an exception in the province of Flemish Brabant because of its official bilingual policy. One peculiarity remaining after the reform is that inhabitants of the six municipalities with language facilities around Brussels can still choose to vote for electoral lists of the Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde has been the subject of a highly sensitive dispute within Belgium and was one of the main topics of the 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis. A majority of the Flemings wanted to split it into two arrondissements (like the administrative ones), while the Francophones wanted to keep it as it was or, at a minimum, split it with concessions.

The lists for the federal and European elections were composed of both Dutch and French-language parties (in all other electoral areas it is either Dutch or French-language parties), while the area is partly monolingual Halle-Vilvoorde and bilingual Brussels. Consequently, French-speakers living in the officially monolingual Dutch-speaking electoral district of Leuven in Flanders could vote for French-language parties in BHV, and Dutch-speakers living in the officially monolingual French-speaking electoral district Nivelles in Walloon Brabant could vote for Dutch-language parties in BHV. In 2003, the Court of Arbitration ruled the BHV district to be unconstitutional, citing unequal voting rights.^[1] It was abolished as part of the 2012 sixth Belgian state reform.