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Steven Gibens |
( °Antwerp 19th of May 1970) is Master of Laws (1993 ) and Master of Criminology (1995).
He has studied at the University of Antwerp and the Catholic University of Louvain. Since 1995 he has been member of the Antwerp Bar, first as trainee, and since 1998 as a full member. Now he is an associate partner of the Law Firm Bijttebier and Company.
In 1996 he was a part time researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain Department of Criminology examining the legal implications of the LinguaNet system in communicating information between law enforcment agencies in diferent countries.
From 1998 he has been a part time researcher at the University of Antwerp (Centre for the Sociology of Law) where he is studying the legal aid system in Belgium.
From 2000 he has been President of the Commission for Legal Aid in the district of Antwerp. The Commission has the duty to organise the consultations of private lawyers giving legal advice. The Commission supports the coordination and collaboration between the different legal aid centres. The third task of the Commission is the spreading of information about legal aid to the citizens. The Commission is entitled to advise the Minister of Justice on legal aid matters.