Julie Van Espen, a 23-year-old woman, was tragically raped and murdered on May 4, 2019, by Steve Baekelmans, a known repeat offender with a violent sexual history.

The victim's family lawyers have argued that the Belgian state's systemic failures in handling Baekelmans's case significantly contributed to her death.

They pointed out that Baekelmans's case experienced an exceptionally long delay, postponed in May 2018 due to a shortage of judges, which ultimately led to the closure of the chamber responsible for the case.

Moreover, the Antwerp correctional court should have ordered Baekelmans's immediate arrest in June 2017, but this did not occur because his detention record was missing from the case file.

Compounding these issues, the Belgian state failed to meet legal requirements regarding magistrates for the Antwerp Court of Appeal, further exacerbating the situation.

The lawyers also claimed that the court's president could have redistributed cases to other chambers to address the backlog, arguing that the closure of a chamber was an illegal decision.

Baekelmans had been previously convicted of rape in June 2017, yet he was not arrested immediately, resulting in a 23-month delay before his appeal trial in 2019, which took place after Van Espen's murder.