On 18 April 2023, the Court of Appeal of Liège found that the Walloon Region’s automatic renewal of the Covid Safe Ticket (CST) was illegal.
The CST was a pass used as a health pass to allow entry in public places depending on vaccination or recovery status during the pandemic. The First Instance Tribunal of Namur had condemned the Walloon Region on 1 March 2022, but the government had appealed the verdict.
The Court of Appeal stated that the Region had failed to guarantee the proportionality of the measure, violating the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and the citizens’ rights and freedoms. The Region also had no scientific evaluation and relied on obsolete epidemiological data. Moreover, the CST had severe effects on people’s rights and freedoms, creating discrimination between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The Court upheld the lower court’s ruling that the CST's automatic renewal was illegal, and the government’s appeal was dismissed.
