1970, the Brussels-Capital Region was not established until a later reform. The province of Brabant had been one of the nine provinces of Belgium. But due to the arrangement of the linguistic border, which passes through this province, the province was abolished after several reforms: In 1989 Brussels-Capital Region was created, but the region was still part of the province of Brabant. With the reform in 1993 making Belgium into a federal state, Brabant became part of all three regions: the Brussels, Flemish and Walloon Region. Until 1995, the province of Brabant contained the following electoral arrondissements: the Dutch-speaking electoral arrondissement of Leuven (coinciding with the administrative arrondissement of Leuven) the French-speaking electoral arrondissement of Nivelles (coinciding with the administrative arrondissement of Nivelles) the electoral arrondissement of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (coinciding with both the administrative arrondissement Brussels-Capital and Halle-Vilvoorde). In 1995, this province was split into: the province of Flemish Brabant the province of Walloon Brabant (which coincides to the arrondissement of Nivelles) Brussels-Capital Region, an own bilingual region (the other two regions being the unilingual Flanders and Wallonia) However, the arrondissements stayed the same. Elections of 2003 New electoral districts For the elections in 2003, new electoral districts were created based on the provinces instead of arrondissements, because the electoral areas were too small. With regards to Brussels and the arrondissements of the province of Flemish Brabant the old arrondissements (Leuven and BHV) were retained (Walloon Brabant has only one arrondissement, so this is in fact also retained), since the French-speakers are against splitting BHV. BHV is declared unconstitutional In 2003, one week after the election, the Arbitration Court (, ), now the Constitutional Court of Belgium, declared the new election law unconstitutional. It judged that, among other things, the definition of the electoral arrondissement Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde for national and European elections is a violation of the non-discrimination principle between Belgians, taken in combination with articles 1 to 5 of the Constitution (especially article 4, defining the language areas). However, it left open the precise nature of any solution and thus did not demand the splitting of the electoral district but did not allow it to be kept as it is now. Nevertheless, the Court declared the results of the 2003 elections (already held under the law declared unconstitutional) to be valid to avoid having to redo the elections. The court however did not rule on all aspects of constitutionality. Among other