Jean-Paul Moerman, born on 14 September 1952 in

Tournai Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Euromet ...

is a Belgian Walloon politician, member of the Mouvement Réformateur. He is a master of Laws ( ULB, 1975), a lawyer registered at the

Mons Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. T ...

bar, a former professor at the Cours provinciaux d'administration of Hainaut Province and a member of the board of administrators of Université de Mons-Hainaut. Since 2001, Moerman is a judge at the Belgian Constitutional Court. Moerman was a lawyer at the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

from September 1975 to December 2000. He was tasked with significant criminal dossiers in the 1980s and 1990s: the acquittal of the "filière boraine" in May 1988 at the Mons

court of assizes A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordanc ...

(after having obtained the divestment of Nivelles investigating judge Schlicker), affair of the "négriers du centre", etc. As the president of the Parti Socialiste "USC" (Union Socialiste Communale) in Mons, he broke with then-current socialist politics. Before the local elections of 1994, he was ejected from the PS, founded the "Mons, Démocratie et Liberté" list and joined

Jean Gol Jean Gol (8 February 1942 – 18 September 1995) was a Belgian politician for the liberal Walloon party Parti Réformateur Libéral (PRL). He was a minister, on several occasions, in the Belgian government, including service as Deputy Prime Mini ...

's PRL- FDF. A Royal Decree on 16 May 2001 nominated Moerman as a judge at the Belgian constitutional court. In 2017 Moerman was proven to have ties with Azerbaijani

caviar diplomacy Caviar diplomacy is a lobbying strategy of Azerbaijan, consisting of costly invitations to foreign politicians and employees of international organizations to Azerbaijan at the expense of the host country. Caviar diplomacy also includes expensive ...

and lobbying for the regime of

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

. He himself conceded "having fallen in love a bit." Moerman frequently traveled to Azerbaijan and his trips were covered by the Communication Office of Azerbaijan (OCAZ), an organization founded by Alain Destexhe and Stef Goris who are known for promoting Azerbaijani interests in Europe. Moerman is known for his statements in favor of the governing regime of Azerbaijan and criticizing the reports of prominent human rights organizations such as

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

. Moerman was mentioned as a member of the so-called "Habsburg group", potential lobbyists for

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, in a 21-page filing by U.S.

Special Counsel In the United States, a special counsel (formerly called special prosecutor or independent counsel) is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute, a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exist ...

Robert Mueller Robert Swan Mueller III (; born August 7, 1944) is an American lawyer and government official who served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A graduate of Princeton University and New York ...

that was unsealed on 13 June 2018.

Political career

*Belgian

federal deputy The Chamber of Deputies ( pt, Câmara dos Deputados) is a federal legislative body and the lower house of the National Congress of Brazil. The chamber comprises 513 deputies, who are elected by proportional representation to serve four-year t ...

(PRL) for the Mons electoral district from 21 May 1995 to 21 May 2001. *Former member of the

city council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

, PRL faction leader.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moerman, Jean-Paul 1952 births Members of the Chamber of Representatives (Belgium) Belgian jurists Politicians from Tournai People from Mons Université libre de Bruxelles Living people