The case was a culmination of the crisis in 2008 over the fate of Fortis Bank, which is now owned by the French BNP Paribas. The court of appeal in Brussels, where Schurmans (pictured) and two other judges were sitting, was being asked to rule on the legality of the sale, organised by the government over the heads, plaintiffs argued, of the Fortis shareholders. One of the main criticisms was that the government had sold off the bank for a low price, instead of intervening to support it until it could ride out its difficulties. Schurmans was on the bench, together with judges Paul Blondeel and Mireille Salmon, but while they took the side of the shareholders, she leaned more to the government’s side.

Schurmans was accused of having passed news of this division on to a friend and former magistrate. Later, according to a letter sent by the head of the Cassation Court to parliament speaker Herman Van Rompuy (see Face of Flanders, p2), representatives of the government attempted to put pressure on the two judges to make them change their minds. The revelation led to the resignation of prime minister Yves Leterme and federal justice minister Jo Vandeurzen.

The case against then-president of Cassation, Ivan Verougstraete, was not proven because, the court in Ghent found, there was nothing told to him that breached confidentiality. In the case against Salmon and Blondell, meanwhile, there was not enough evidence to convict them of breach of confidentiality and an additional charge of falsifying documents. Schurmans announced her immediate intention to file an appeal. “I don’t understand the decision of the court at all,” she told reporters after the verdict. “I’m been found guilty according to an extremely technical and academic approach because I asked for advice from a colleague. That is common practice among judges, who, like doctors, have to be able to consult among themselves.”

Schurmans also faces an internal disciplinary procedure within the magistrate, but details of that are unlikely to be revealed until all available legal appeals have been exhausted.